


Roses and Daisies

by Caritas_Lavellan



Series: Earth Mind [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Courtship, Demons and Drama and Plot, F/M, Fade Romance, First Time, Fluff, Post-Trespasser, Romance, Sera is... Sera, Sexual Content, Solavellan - Relationship - Freeform, There be griffons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:48:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 121,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9877802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caritas_Lavellan/pseuds/Caritas_Lavellan
Summary: Cloudreach, 9:45 Dragon. The world is safe, and this time Lavellan’s taking Solas back to Skyhold with her. But there's much to work through, not least his expressed desire to court her properly.Everything’s more complicated when you’re Dalish.





	1. Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> See the [Earth Mind](http://archiveofourown.org/series/306273) series notes for further details of how this story fits in to the series.

The moon shone brightly on the snow piled up against the back wall of the fortress. Solas had flown out through the narrow opening first, checking that it was safe to return outside. At his signal, a long low whistle, Virla followed him, running her hand over the frame of the eluvian once more before her fingers became feathers.

Two jet black ravens landed on the snow, and became two elves in elvhen armour. The shorter one, a red-haired woman, looked at the snowdrift they had used to hide the presence of the empty wagon, and then back up at Solas. He was staring up at the sky – at the moon high above the fortress. A solitary owl wheeled overhead.

“Do you think the horses will have made it back?” she asked, fighting the urge to yawn. “Where should we go?”

Solas dragged his eyes back to her face, a wry smile on his lips. “I should repair the window first. Then, perhaps, you might fly to the tower. If your room is not in use, you ought to sleep there. It is long past time for bed.”

He turned to face the window, with its slag of melted iron bars and missing pane of glass. The glass was buried underneath the snow as well, and Solas replaced it once more with the ward he’d used while they were in the Fade. Knowing him, the ward was tougher than the glass, and she need not trouble Desjardins for its early replacement. That, like so much else, could wait.

She leant against the cold stone wall of her fortress, the castle he had given her. “May I watch you?”

His smile deepened, and he nodded, raising his arms in preparation for shaping the iron into its trellis. It took barely a minute, his hands moulding the intense heat with practised ease, persuading the metal back into the forms and shapes it had known for centuries.

“Very useful,” said Virla, as he stepped back to admire his handiwork. “Is that how they did it back in Elvhenan?”

“For the most part, at least until the raising of the Veil. The Dalish kingdom of Halamshiral appears to have borrowed ancient work, or reconstructed it in simpler forms. I noted that Din’an Hanin lacked ironwork across its windows. But then, they had fewer slaves. The Imperium used dwarven masons as well as slaves and magic.”

Virla sighed. There was much to catch up on. “I wonder what is happening in Tevinter.”

“There are fewer slaves there now,” said Solas, flexing his fingers. “A great many travelled south, in search of somebody named Fen’Harel. Apparently, his base was in the Tirashan. A citadel called Aratishan.”

“I wonder what he did there,” said Virla innocently. “I am familiar with the Dread Wolf’s name.”

“Some say he formed a new clan, to impress his Dalish mistress. They say she is most beautiful in moonlight.”

He had leant one arm against the wall beside her head, sheltering her body from the wind that whipped around the castle walls. She flushed, still unaccustomed to his teasing, but held his gaze. “How would they know?”

“She haunts their dreams, _‘ma ar’lath_ , just as you haunt mine.”

At that, she let out a peal of laughter, louder than she had meant, and then clapped her right hand in its metal gauntlet on her mouth, glancing around with wide, bright eyes. Strange, to be hiding from those guarding her own castle, but she had rather not embark on all the explanations now, not before she’d slept.

Solas took a step back, drew himself up to his full height, and linked his hands behind his back. Virla tensed instinctively. Then she saw his eyes gleam blue with mischief, and knew that he had only feigned offence.

She bit her lip, trying to work out how to say that she remembered dreams of him as well, the hot soaked fever of imagined passion. Hard, when he pretended coldness, but she knew the heat that lay beneath the surface.

Watching her changing expression, his eyes softened, and he reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, metal on gilded metal. “You are tired, _vhenan_ , and you should sleep. Come, let us go up. Mayhap we will see some friends of ours from the air, that we can contact when you wake. Cassandra perhaps, or Varric.”

“I would be surprised if Varric had left Kirkwall. Solas, if the horses…”

He stopped her with a gesture. “Don’t worry about the horses. Your army has returned victorious tonight. The Black City is shattered, and rock wraiths no longer besiege the cities. Two riderless horses will not be marked.”

Virla shook her head, less confident. “Whoever left them for us will be looking out for our return.”

“You are correct,” he said, “and shortly we will send a message to them. Your room has paper, does it not?”

“We could fly up there,” said Virla, slowly. Then, in a rush: “Will you stay with me tonight?”

His hand was still resting on her shoulder, and the moonlight lit his face. “I will not desert you while you sleep.”

She nodded, satisfied for now, and pulled the form of a raven from the Fade, compressing and cloaking herself in feathers. It was a steep climb, buffeted by icy winds. Solas quickly overtook her, calling where the updrafts were, that she might follow in his wake. The rooms and gardens of Aratishan, where she had practised flying, had not been as wild, nor as cold. She was glad of the guidance.

Halfway up, she looked down at the courtyards far below. The Dalish aravels of her clan, Clan Al’var, were still there, tucked up close beside the stables. She felt a rush of gratitude to Keeper Hawen for staying through the Skyhold winter, and wondered how he’d greet his absent First. Relief, that she was still alive; or anger, for her dalliance with Fen’Harel? He was a kind man, not quick to anger, but stubborn too.

The Skyhold grounds were thronged with people, not quiet as they had been when she’d left to travel north with Dorian last summer, all those months ago. It was as Solas said: her army had returned. Qunari, dwarves and humans, golems and werewolves, and more elves than she’d ever seen in one place in her life. A contented hum rose from the people as they laughed and joked, too weary to dance perhaps, but raising flagons of wine in celebration. A bard – like Maryden, but not her – sang in one corner, and others gathered round to listen.

Virla glided over the rail of the balcony that looked out on the mountains, out of sight of the people far below, landing in the shadow of the wall. Solas was already standing there, transformed back, his hands on the diamond lattice of the doors. She felt his magic wash over her feathers, as he checked nobody was in the room. Above them, the owl hooted, its snowy white plumage glowing in the moonlight. He looked up at it, then down at her, and smiled. With a soft shiver he pushed the doors open, to let her fly inside.

It was just as she had left it, and why that should have surprised her, she didn’t know.

She landed by the fireplace, neatly swept clear of ash, and shifted back into her elven form. The armour felt heavy around her, but her heart was light. Had she not been so tired, she could have sung with joy. The bed was there, with its dark red velvet curtains tied with braid, the sigil of Kirkwall outlined on the headboard, courtesy of Varric. Virla drifted across the room, to touch the velvet, feel the silken sheets.

“We made it back,” she said, half to herself, half to Solas. “We made it back!”

He had an odd expression on his face, one she couldn’t place: thoughtful but not pensive, perhaps? Rather than closing the doors, he flicked his hand and swept a barrier across the opening, before kneeling down by the fireplace to make the fire up with logs. Another quick gesture, and warmth began to spread across the room.

“You might like to get changed,” he said. “I will wait outside.”

She nodded, realising that she’d worn this armour for a month, and pulled a dark blue velvet dress out from the wardrobe: suitable for evening wear, and even as a nightdress if she fell asleep. Solas had gone on to the balcony, silently slipping through the barrier. As he watched the snow upon the moonlit mountains, she watched his back. Something in the set of his shoulders suggested he was thinking through a problem.

Virla hoped it wasn’t her.

Once she had fixed the dress, and knotted the strings of its belt around her waist, she stepped out on to the balcony. The stones were cold under her feet. It was strange to be an elf again, after a month as a dragon.

“Come inside,” she said, rubbing one foot upon the other calf. “It’s warmer by the fire.”

“Only for a short time,” he said, with sudden firmness. “We should write a note to your friends, to let them know you will be arriving in the morning. And then, I should not stay. You need to sleep.”

It felt as if he’d slapped her. Virla saw him flinch as well at the hurt that must have shown on her face, as they walked just inside the room, passing through the barrier again. She had hoped that – despite their mutual exhaustion – he might stay tonight, that he might sleep with her in her bed, just as she had slept in his room in the citadel deep within the Tirashan. She needed him. She needed to know he was there.

“I would like you to stay,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. She could feel the words she’d said before, echoed endlessly by spirits, before he’d kissed her for the first time, here. She repeated them: “Don’t go!”

“It is not that I don’t want to,” said Solas quietly. He had removed his gauntlets before he lit the fire, and now he held her hands in his, meeting her pleading gaze with a look so serious she feared the worst.

“Don’t leave me again,” she cried. “I cannot bear it!”

He dropped her hands, but only to press her body against his, crushing her lips beneath his own. “I will not leave you, _vhenan_. _Tel’enfenim,_ ” he said, eventually, cradling her head between his hands.

The passion of his kiss awoke a deeper need within her. Her whole body felt alight, as if she were glowing, as if with a thought she could set the castle ablaze. “I need you, Solas,” she insisted. “Stay!”

Solas shook his head, and disengaged her hands from around his waist, ignoring her attempts to hold on to him. He walked towards the barrier, and said, in a loud voice: “I will return in the morning. Let us write the note, and then I’ll fly it down to whoever is on duty. Tomorrow we can ask Keeper Hawen to meet us a short distance away from Skyhold, and agree how your return should be arranged.”

“Keeper Hawen?” she said, surprised. “Not Harding or Cassandra or Sera?”

His hands were locked behind his back, fingers interlacing. “He is your Keeper, is he not? Dalish traditions are based on a memory of the old ways, which both of us ought to respect.”

“Except when they are wrong,” said Virla, crossing her arms. “Like vallaslin.”

“Indeed. How do you propose to explain me to your clan? Tell them they were wrong about the Dread Wolf, or let them think a lie? Or would you rather have a chance to sleep before you let me know?”

Virla sighed. He was right, there was no chance to hide his identity. She walked up to him, putting a hand on his arm again. The metal was warm to the touch, this close to the fireplace. “We could live in the forest…”

“No,” said Solas. “I do not wish to separate you from your clan. You have a responsibility to them, even if not to those we both called friends. Varric, Dorian, Sera… would you cut yourself off from them all?”

“You think we should brave it out,” said Virla. He looked so beautiful in this light, half lit by fire and half by moonlight. “Then why not stay with me tonight? What difference does it make?”

He paused before he answered, and she took the opportunity to draw him back towards the bed by his elbow.

“You should get out of your armour too,” she said, and focused hard, to pull a memory of a long white linen shirt out from the Fade. She wanted him to wear it, tonight, with her in bed. In her bed, him. Together.

Much to her surprise, the magic worked… and a shirt fluttered down on to the rug, with its woven golden sun, in the centre of the room. It had fallen just short of her outstretched hand: a white linen shirt, identical to the one he’d worn at nights, entwined around her.

Virla gasped, and jumped back, startled. “Oh! I didn’t think that would actually work.”

Unexpectedly, Solas smiled. “You are very persuasive, _vhenan_. Your focus as indomitable as always.”

“Then dominate it, Fen’Harel,” she whispered, stepping close to him until she felt the strength and vigour of his aura, wild as the sun. Magic was swirling around them both, flaring out in all directions. “ _Ar isala, ‘ma ar’lath._ ”

He stepped back, shaking his head, but only to begin unclasping the pauldrons and armour from around his chest. They fell with loud metallic clangs on the hard stone floor, away from the rug, and Virla found, despite it all, that she was terrified, a hot blush creeping up her chest and covering her face.

Scared that she had dared to tempt the Dread Wolf, that she had sought him out and brought him back. All thought of the world she had saved from him had faded from her mind. He stood before her, bare to the waist, taut muscles gleaming in the firelight, and she felt as vulnerable and uncertain as the girl who’d first stood here four years ago and looked out from her castle, wondering where the trees had gone.

Her mind told her that she’d seen him naked before, she knew his body, but that had been when he was tranquil. It ought to have been more horrifying than this. Perhaps the presence of Abelas nearby had somehow reassured her. Perhaps… and this thought was even less reassuring… her mind had not been then entirely hers.

This wasn’t a ritual. This wasn’t something that she had to do to save the world.

This was a choice, and Solas was a man who’d lived for centuries… millennia… and she had no idea what he would do, or what he wanted from her.

She stood there, frozen, poised between the urge to slip her own dress off and throw herself at him, and the thought that… maybe, just perhaps, he had been right, and she should sleep, that they could work this part out later. Her pulse was beating so hard that she could feel it in her wrists and throat. The new bindings she had put on underneath her dress were already soaked with sweat and longing. And Solas stood there, patiently waiting.

Virla found herself stepping backwards towards the bed, her hands fingering the strings of her belt, only stopping when she was brought up against the bedpost, her red hair brushing back against the velvet curtains.

“I… I…” she managed, trying to undo the knot at her waist, with fingers that shook and trembled.

She tried to breathe, in through her nose, telling herself that she had conquered would-be gods, that this was just another thing to conquer, that Solas would not hurt her, when she caught sight of a movement behind him.

It was an owl, the snowy owl, perhaps the same one they’d seen earlier, and it swooped over the rail and careened into the barrier at full speed. Magic rebounded off the barrier, and Virla blinked at the force of it: the barrier had not felt so strong when they’d passed through it earlier.

She stared down at the owl, its limp white body lying on the ground, and then gasped, as the owl transformed into the body of a man. An old man, white-haired, with Andruil’s vallaslin tattooed across his face.  

Virla ran across the room, and with a movement of her hand dispelled the barrier. It had weakened already, with the force of impact, and she knelt down by her Keeper’s form. Solas hastened to her side, carried the man to lie upon her bed, and checked him over, his hands moving rapidly over the man’s head and chest. Hawen was breathing, but barely conscious, his eyes still closed. He would be fine. Furious, perhaps, but fine.

She met Solas’ deceptively bland gaze above his body, and saw the hint of a rueful smile on his face. Her eyes widened, and he nodded. He bent down to collect the pieces of his armour, ignoring the shirt still on the floor. As he put them on, she murmured, quietly enough not to be heard from the bed: “You knew!”

“I may have suspected something,” he admitted, equally softly. “When I went out on the balcony, I took the opportunity to confirm my hypothesis. I knew the owl was watching me. A certain feeling of being… judged.”

Virla remembered the Nug King in the Deep Roads, and stifled a laugh at Solas’ humour, dry as a dusty riverbed. Then she sobered up. In his own way, Hawen had been kind to her. He’d taken her on as his First since Clan Lavellan had too many mages. He’d listened and advised her. “He is a good man, Solas. What shall we do with him?”

He shrugged, not unkindly. “He will wake soon. I suspect we are his problem, rather than the reverse.”

She drew herself up. “There are times when I forget who you truly are, _vhenan._ Very well, let’s wait.”

They sat down on the divan, the Dread Wolf decorously crossing his ankles beside her, and waited to be judged.

 


	2. Firelight

They hadn’t had to wait long before her Keeper’s eyes opened. No time to agree a plan, or what to say.

Wondering how much of this encounter Solas had intended, or at least not been willing to prevent, Virla disentangled her hand from the light grasp he held it in, and walked across, barefoot, to the bed. As she approached, Hawen turned his head. His white hair was scraped back into its usual knot, but he looked older, his tanned skin paler and more lined.

Had Solas not healed him, he would have had a far worse headache. As it was, he looked bewildered and uncomfortable, surprised to find himself here: lying on a four-poster bed with silken sheets and velvet curtains. It reminded her of her own experiences of fainting, of waking up in a strange environment.

“ _Andaran atish’an, hahren,_ ” she said, as kindly as she could, and waited. “We mean you no harm.”

Hawen nodded curtly in acknowledgement. His eyes flickered over to the divan, flaring suddenly with wounded pride like those of a trapped halla. She had no idea what he knew, but he clearly knew something.  

He sat up, straight-backed, crossing his legs as if they sat on moss and not on silk. “Who is this man, _da’len_?”

“His name is Solas,” said Virla. “You have met him before, when we cleared out Var Bellanaris for the clan, and later, when we gave Emalien the Talisman of Lindiranae, and brought back Hanal’ghilan.”

Hawen frowned. “And when you told me about that fool boy Taven. Memory has not yet begun to fail me, and I have spoken with a number of your friends: elven, human, _durgen’len_. Is this the man you left in search of?”

“I did not say that I was searching for a man.”

“You did not need to tell me that. I knew already. Why do you think I did not seek a mate for you at the Arlathvhen? You are of age. I was not short of offers, and some were even worthy of you.”

Virla flushed. “I thought…” she began, then decided to say just one of the things she’d thought. “I thought that, with my vallaslin removed, I might be treated as a child, not available for bonding with a mate.”

“You are not a child,” said Hawen, suddenly severe, and gestured at her face and body. “The Arlathvhen believed your story that your vallaslin were taken for a purpose. They had heard the stories of the Breach, of your defeat of the ancient shemlen magister who sought to enter the Beyond and kill our gods.”

“Then why did you not seek a mate for me?” She’d not dared to ask before, in case it put the idea into his mind.

“Because Loranil was right,” said Hawen, with a shrug. “The man who took your vallaslin had also taken your heart. Another follower of Mythal, you said, when I asked you at the Arlathvhen. Keeper Deshanna had already consulted the other Keepers, when she heard of the frescos here. Nobody had heard of a Dalish elf called Solas.”

“You called him flat-ear,” said Virla, remembering. She’d just woken from a nightmare.

  * _You will be the mother of His brood, a purer breed of darkspawn. You will never see the Light again._



It was a memory, but still she shivered, knowing that the Nightmare lived imprisoned in her past.

Behind her, Solas was as still as if he had been dressed in an armour of silence as well as one of metal. A gilded metal so finely wrought that no clan could have made it; a statement in itself, as she well knew.

“Then, I said what Loranil had spoken,” said Hawen. “But we Keepers already suspected that ancient elves still lived within the Arbor Wilds, as well as in the Tirashan. We guarded those suspicions closely. Flat-ears living in the cities: they follow Andraste, not Mythal. Their arts are pottery and weaving, not frescoes and the study of the Beyond.”

At this, he stared at Solas, and Virla turned in time to see the Dread Wolf’s head incline an inch, in acknowledgement of reason well applied. The fire was still burning warmly, gradually taking away the chill.

Virla found herself yawning despite the situation. Her legs and arms ached. “Keeper, may I sit?”

Hawen nodded, then as she looked to sit upon the floor, cross-legged, rolled his eyes. “On the bed, _da’len_. There is no need to sit on stone. I can see you are exhausted. And this is far too large for one.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and wondered how often she had dreamed of being here, of having Solas back here in this room. The thought brought heat to her body, a spiral of want. If Hawen had not spied on them…

With an effort, she brought her mind back to what her Keeper had said. He must have been sure that he was right, to justify refusing offers for her hand. It wasn’t as if the clan was large, or he at the prime of life.

“You had not seen the frescoes before you attended the Arlathvhen, _hahren_ ,” she said, thinking back to that time.

Hawen shrugged. “Loranil had sent me reports. Deshanna seemed certain. And then I thought about that night you came to tell me about Taven’s death. We talked about Din’an Hanin, and the terrible history that lay behind the loss of the Dirth, and all the time you kept your helm on. You wouldn’t stay in the camp. I never said that I had watched your party earlier that evening, as you killed the dragon in the Fens.”

“The Gamordan Stormrider?” asked Solas. He was tired too, she realised: his head rested on his left hand, his left elbow propped up on the arm of the divan. “You did not come to our aid.”

“You seemed to have the measure of the beast,” said Hawen, sharply. “The both of you, and the man they call the good Tevinter and the Qunari who is not. I am not as young as I was.”

Solas sighed, and looked away out through the open doors, perhaps remembering a time when men of Hawen’s age were young. At some point, Virla realised, he must have replaced the broken barrier, to stop the cold winds entering the room. Moonlight shone in through the glass that bore the sigil of the Inquisition, lighting up the eye and the sword in silver. The Inquisition banner still hung, brown and gold, above the fireplace.

“Maybe it is difficult for ancient elves to see us Dalish growing old,” said Hawen, his eyes softening. “But age has compensations. Such as time to have learned the forms of animals, and to recognise others who can shift.”

“You watched us as an owl?”

“Always keep an eye out for the noble owl,” said Keeper Hawen, with what might have been a smile, as he patted Virla’s hand. His eyes were still on Solas. “Andruil might have a message for you.”

“And what message would that be?” said Solas, standing up. “Let not your prey suffer?”

His face was still a mask. He’d quoted from the Vir Tanadhal, but Virla couldn’t stop remembering the words he'd said in Mythal’s Temple: _The elven gods existed, but they were not gods. Never mistake the Dalish for arbiters of true elvhen culture._ Perhaps there was no middle ground, no way to get the Dalish to accept him, or for him to reconcile himself to ignorance brought on by the passage of time. _I can’t face another fight, not yet._

Hawen’s face darkened, and Virla felt the anger underneath the surface. “Does she know who the rumours say you are? The elven clan that came here from the west, that fought and killed the evil god?”

“I don’t know what the rumours say,” said Virla quickly, before Solas could respond.

“The clan say that they follow Fen’Harel,” said Hawen. “They say that he was there with you. They say that he had been with you at Skyhold. They say that his name here was Solas.”

She’d known it was coming, and tried not to freeze, but could not work out what to say. He must have heard the name upon their lips when he had listened earlier. Her hand was sweating under his. What could he know?

“What do you believe?” asked Solas, into a sudden silence. The winds were quieter now.

“I said I saw your party kill the dragon. In the Fens, not the one they killed last night.”

Virla closed her eyes, gripping the bedpost nearest her. Part of her wanted to scream the truth, and damn the consequences. She’d thought the worst was over – and so, undoubtedly, it was – but this was painful too. She’d trusted Hawen, and he’d trusted her, and she’d betrayed him. A tear slid slowly down her cheek.

Hawen was continuing: “…and after you had killed the dragon, I saw Virlath walk up to the Shrine of Fen’Harel, and offer dragon webbing. A good offering, particularly given you had killed the beast nearby.”

Virla felt a pang of gratitude that somebody had valued her attempt to do things right, and surreptitiously wiped the tear away. The men were staring at each other like two stags before a fight, and neither looked at her.

“Why tell us this?” asked Solas, his chin high, face set, hands behind his back. “I do not mean any disrespect, but it is already late, and the moon is high in the sky. I believe that we all prefer to rise early.”

“I saw your face. You loved her, yet – as Loranil confirmed soon after – you stayed apart from her. Back then, I only had suspicions. Now, when they say you are Fen’Harel himself, I remember how you looked… and wonder.”

 

There was a long pause, and Virla wondered if her lord and lover’s mask would crack. Falling on his knees and weeping bitterly for forgiveness was no way to earn the favour of a Keeper, and she hoped that Solas knew that. Indeed it seemed so, for he paced out to the open doors, and ran his hand over the barrier. Virla could feel the temptation to flee within him, strong as dragon flight. If he did, she’d follow him.

But he’d said, barely half-an-hour before: _I will not leave you, vhenan. Tel’enfenim._

It was very hard to trust, and yet she held her nerve. Hawen’s face was firm as well: it seemed he had decided on his course of action, come what may. Perhaps she was the Keeper’s coursing hound, that chased across the Fade to grab the Dread Wolf by the tail, and made him howl so loud the Veil shook.

She shivered. Fen’Harel was really very attractive. What if she’d been wrong, what if…?

 

“I once lived in Arlathan,” said Solas, turning around, and striding halfway back towards the bed. “This armour that you see me wear, that Virla saw the elves wear in the Arbor Wilds – it is mine. I have not stolen it.”

“I did not think you had,” said Hawen, and waited; Virla breathed again.

 

“Then,” said Solas, slowly. “You must know that I am older than you. Far, far older. And, from what you said, you have allowed your First to leave in search of ancient elves… of me, in fact.”

“The elves of this age have so little to preserve,” said Hawen, sadly. “Virlath had spoken with the All-Mother. She has done more to advance our knowledge than any other Dalish I have known. And then she lost her arm.”

“I thought that would have made you less likely to allow me to go north,” said Virla.

Her Keeper turned to her, shaking his head slightly. “Before the humans called you to their Council, I would see you smiling, but behind the eyes you were resigned. You looked as if the whole world sat upon your shoulders.”

“And after it?”

“I saw you furious, driven with a purpose you had lacked. The hunters took you out, and told me later you had killed the blight wolves with a one-handed fervour you did not extend to other creatures. Which reminds me…”

He picked up her limp left hand, and turned it over. Virla felt her blood run cold, remembering she’d not explained _that_. The line of blue ran across it, like the Minanter River across Nevarra and the Free Marches.

“What does this mean, Virlath?” asked her Keeper. “Do you know? How is it you have your arm back?”

Virla saw Fen’Harel’s lips twitch, perhaps recognising that in the Keeper’s curiosity lay leverage. She sensed he might have chuckled, were it Varric asking, and span some kind of web to see how far he was believed.

That small gesture gave her confidence. He hadn’t gone, he wanted her to decide how much to tell her friends and clan. Maybe she could spin a web of her own. It wasn’t as if the whole truth could be told tonight.

“They say that Fen’Harel did not care for the People, but that is far from true,” she began. “The dragon that you killed was the last of the gods of evil he imprisoned.”  

“The last?” asked Hawen, with a suddenly intent look. “Yes, that would explain…”

Virla interrupted him. “Have you slept yet, since last night?” After a slight frown and hesitation, perhaps at the interruption, perhaps from frustration at his age again, Hawen nodded. He offered nothing more.

“Did you look up?” asked Virla. She cast the barrier back against the door, and watched the line across her hand grow silver. “Did you see the Silver City?”

Hawen’s eyes widened, and he looked from Virla’s hand to Fen’Harel.

It took a few seconds, but they both saw Hawen’s mind connect the trees.

“ _Ir abelas, mirthadra Fen'Harel,_ ” he said, “…for thinking that You might be an imposter. The war was real, the truce is over?”

“There is nothing to forgive, _da’len_ ,” said Fen’Harel, his armour shining silver. “Your First has won great honour for your clan. The war was real. The gods of evil are defeated. Now we hope that goodness may prevail.”

It wasn’t exactly lying, pretending that the Dread Wolf had been always on the side of the Creators – they all knew, or had been taught, that he had fought on both sides. But if it would comfort Hawen to believe, for now, that Fen’Harel had sided with Andruil, neither of them cared to contradict that.

Maybe in a few years’ time.

 

Hawen’s eyes were bright. He clutched her hand, and offered out another to the Dread Wolf. Virla couldn’t help but feel that both of them were taking this too easily. “Aren’t Keepers supposed to protect their clans from the Dread Wolf?” she asked, almost petulantly, as Hawen placed their hands together in between his own.

“I let you pursue Him,” said Hawen. “We are taught He always has His price. Mine is losing you.”

Fen’Harel’s eyes narrowed, then, as he figured out the meaning, narrowed further. “I need no price,” he stated.

Hawen shook his head so vigorously that loose braids fell out of the knot and dangled over his cheeks. His eyes flamed. “You deny she is your bondmate, after what I saw tonight?”

“I would not have…” Solas trailed off, suddenly uncertain. She could almost see the thoughts spin in his head, like tiny hourglasses: desire and wisdom battling it out.

The old Keeper sighed. “How many nights was she within Your citadel? Do You expect me to believe that nothing happened there? Do You think she will ever choose another mate? Who else would dare?”

“She ought to have the choice!” cried Solas, then bit his lips together as if terrified he would say more.

Virla looked at him, then back at Hawen. If she pushed now, Solas would run scared. It was too soon for him, she saw. He’d asked to court her, wanting eventually to marry her, fearing she would change her mind. He needed to know she wouldn’t break his heart… which was deeply infuriating. She thrust that last thought far away.

“In Elvhenan, _hahren_ ,” she said, in as calm a voice as she could manage, “courtship might last centuries.”

“We are not in Elvhenan,” said Keeper Hawen, slowly, “nor yet Halamshiral, and my clan needs children. Or, if Fen’Harel has a clan that you would leave ours for, perhaps you would be good enough to find me a new First!”

She looked helplessly towards Solas, trying to figure out what best to do. For his part, Solas took a deep breath, and straightened up, visibly becoming Fen’Harel again. “I will think upon your offer, Keeper. I will wait on you and Virlath in the morning…” then added, to a nod from Hawen, “…with your permission, of course.”

A white owl and a jet black raven flew into the sky, and Virla closed the doors on both. Eventually, she gave up trying to untie the knots of her blue velvet dress herself, and lay down in it underneath the sheets. She tossed and turned, unable to find her way to the Beyond, or stop her thoughts of how his skin shone in the moonlight. Most of all, she missed his warmth – those strong, sinewy arms that had held her close against his chest.

It was only with a great effort of will that she managed not to fly out in search of him. Eventually, she dozed.

  



	3. Idyll

Virla opened her eyes to see him standing by the window, looking out at the City. She took a moment to admire the view: his broad shoulders and slim waist, the long fingers as ever entangled behind his back. He was wearing a pale green cotton shirt which skimmed his upper thighs, over cream-coloured leggings: a neater version of the clothes he had been used to wear as Solas-the-apostate. Somehow she found that reassuring.

“You were frightened,” he said, still not turning around. “You were afraid of me.”

“I was tired,” she said, pushing herself upright in the bed that was just like the one she’d left in Skyhold.

Or had not left. It was hard to tell where things and people were, sometimes.

The velvet robe had vanished, and in its place she wore a white silk dress, with tiny buttons fastening it down the back. Red hair cascaded to her waist: not tied back in braids, and longer and cleaner than it really was. She drew out a strand and twisted it around her fingers, wondering if she were a fantasy of herself, here in the Fade.

“That is true… and yet you were also afraid.”

Solas strode across, as if he were about to join her in the bed, but stopped instead, and leant against one of the bedposts at the foot that supported the canopy above. At his touch it branched and grew into a tree, and she found the room transformed to forest, silvered in an early morning twilight. The furnishings of the bed remainined unchanged, and served as an incongruous reminder of the room.

At her gasp of surprise, he chuckled. “I can turn it back, if you prefer,” he said.

Virla drew her hands out from her hair, and touched the bark of the nearest tree, marvelling at how real it felt. She shook her head, wondering how to explain the way he made her feel. It was a dizzying sense of being out of control, of being part of something so much bigger than herself that…

“I am afraid,” she said. “Of how much it might hurt were you to leave me again. Of losing myself. Of being hurt.”

“I have no desire to hurt you,” said Solas, touching a twig above his head. It flowered into petals and he smiled, taking a moment to inhale its fragrance. “It is hard to realise the Nightmare’s truly gone.”

Virla watched as all around the forest, buds came into bloom: white and pink and lilac. The mix of scents was subtle but intense, like the memory of an expensive Orlesian perfume, wafted once across the room.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, then paused, staring down at the twists of hair that fell upon her lap. It all seemed far too good to be true. “You are sure that this is…”

“Real?”

His voice held a note of laughter and she felt her ears turn pink. “Perhaps we can debate that another night.”

“I would be happy to do so,” agreed Solas, his voice determinedly neutral.

She realised neither of them wanted to make the first move. Here, where they could never be disturbed, safe from any social mores or interruptions, freer even from spirits watching than they would be on the far side of the Veil… yes, here: they were still bound by shyness, introversion, convention, fear of the unknown…

She shivered, and found he’d moved to sit beside her, one arm round her shoulders, two pairs of knees tucked up side by side. Hers were still underneath the covers, a red and gold mountain next to his two white peaks.

“What was it like?” she asked, and somehow she knew he’d guess what she referred to.

His left hand was gently stroking her shoulder, warm through the silk. It slowed but didn’t stop. His voice deepened and softened: “Watching someone else make love to you? Someone who you thought was me?”

Virla nodded. She could only remember fragments of those dreams: flashes of his skin or eyes, her lust.

“Complicated,” he said, his fingers stilling slightly as he said the word. “It was… complicated.”

“I can’t remember it,” she said suddenly, the words spilling out. “I know it must have happened, and sometimes, when I was a dragon, there was a scent or sound or something that reminded me… and I craved you, wanted you so badly it hurt, and…”

“I wanted you. I want you,” said Solas, interrupting. It was something he rarely did, and she found her gaze borne up to meet his, the heat pouring off him like the sun’s rays in a desert. “ _Ar isala, ‘ma vhenan._ ”

“Then why not…”

He gripped her shoulder tightly, saying in a shaky voice: “Because you are frightened, you are frightened of me, and I need to know why. I need to understand. I can’t impose myself on you again. It wouldn’t be right.”

“We could start with kisses,” she said, as he looked away again, staring up at the flowers as if the trees might help. “We could start with something, couldn’t we?”

“If I start, _vhenan,_ I’ll never stop. I… I can remember every dream you had, every gesture, every… p… p…”

“Position?”

“P… position, yes, and every place you dreamed of. I could recreate it all, down to the last detail, one fantasy after another, feel you as you shuddered and sang beneath me, run my hands between your legs and…”

He stopped, taking in a harsh breath, shaking his head vigorously. Her cheeks were flaming red, her heart beating furiously, and he hadn’t even kissed her yet. His arm was clamped tightly round her now, locking them in the present – unwilling to let go, terrified of moving on.

“Is it the strength of my feelings that frightens you, _vhenan?_ ” he said, his voice a study in anguish. “If so, we are lost. I cannot help but feel this way. I tried… I have tried.”

Virla tried to think. “No… I don’t believe so. I was frightened, but that was because I was tired. I don’t think I am frightened of that. And if I was, I know that you would stop. You wouldn’t hurt me.”

“That is what you believe, but what if you are wrong? What if…”

It struck her that she was not now frightened, but that he was.

“Solas,” she said. “Why are you scared? The Nightmare is gone. The Blight is gone… or it will be, once we’ve cleared out the remaining nests of darkspawn. Hawen knows that you are Fen’Harel and even he is willing to accept you. That’s a miracle I never thought was possible. And we are in a beautiful forest in the Fade. What is there to be scared of? Getting it wrong? Being betrayed?”

His eyes grew wilder. “Being the betrayer. I am the Great Betrayer. Why does that not frighten you?”

“It did,” said Virla frankly. “It really, genuinely did. But anyone can betray another in love. Look around. Some couples cheat upon each other. It doesn’t mean they didn’t love each other to begin with.”

“You think it is worth it, even if it ends in sorrow?”

“Varric seems to feel that way about Bianca,” said Virla, “and Vivienne about Duke Bastien.”

“They left for love, then love lost them,” said Solas. She’d heard that somewhere before, but couldn’t place it. “I suppose… that I am used to thinking in terms of decades and centuries. You haven’t even lived three decades!”

“And you find it easier to talk than act,” said Virla, wriggling her legs out from the covers. “It’s not how many years you live, it’s what you do in them that counts. Wait! I don’t mean the Veil, I mean…”

“I know what you mean,” he said, with a sigh. “You mean in love. Relationships. Trust.”

His breathing was growing more steady now, panic subsiding. She could see him staring at her bare calves and knees, the dress ruched up in deliberate provocation, a fall of white around her. He let his arm fall away, leaning back on his elbows in thought. Virla lay down on her side, her head twisted on the pillows so she could see him.

After a moment, Solas’ lips twitched, and he lay down on his side, facing her, a few inches between them.

“I would very much like you to kiss me,” said Virla, drawing a finger down the buttons of his shirt, “and I would like it very much if it continued. Were things always this slow in Elvhenan?”

“Much slower,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose.

Virla laughed. “It must have been a surprise when I kissed you that first time. We’d known each other months!”

“It was the most beautiful moment of my life,” said Solas, sounding entirely serious.

He took her hand as it fluttered down to his waist, and slipped it underneath his shirt, pushing it upwards until it lay over his heart. His skin was firm, and warm. She could feel his nipple hardening, his Fade-aura tingling around her hand, and his heartbeat racing.

“You’ve never done this before,” she said out loud, coming to a realisation. “You’ve never let yourself.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“A little, yes. No-one imagines that the Dread Wolf is… a virgin.”

He shrugged, clearly embarrassed. “It used to be far more common. Everyone has sex, these days.”

For a moment, he’d sounded every one of his ten thousand years. She snorted. “Not _everyone_ , surely!”

His lips quirked up into a hesitant smile. “You forget we shared a camp with Dorian and Bull. The noise…”

She giggled. “They were happy, in their own way. Anyway, aren’t you technically not a virgin, because of the dragon thing we did? And won’t anything we do in the Fade technically not change anything anyway?”

“You are determined to debate this tonight,” he said, his eyes now lighting with amusement… and something else, a flare of naked longing.

“Not… determined, no,” she said, beginning to slide out her hand. Then, as she realised he had simply wished away his shirt: “Solas! I wanted to undo those buttons! I’ll just have to…”

She pushed him on to his back, and straddled him, one knee each side of his waist, peppering his bare chest with kisses. His skin smelled good: pine and elfroot, mingling with the fragrance of the flowers.

His hands drifted down her back, leaving the buttons untouched, ghosted over the silk that covered her ass and upper thighs, and tickled the backs of her calves. They slid up, underneath the dress this time, caressing the backs of her thighs with firm slow strokes. She’d stopped trying to kiss him, entranced by the quiet wildness in his eyes. An arboreal wild, she thought. She decided against asking if he were a tree, a tree spirit. Conversation might give him an excuse to draw away again. He needed to forget himself.

At a murmured instruction she lay on her front, and felt him lift the dress up to the top of her thighs. She thought he might start at her feet, as he had done when tranquil in the citadel: it would be familiar for both of them. She remembered the warmth of his hands, the horrible evenness of his tone, his memorised kisses, a duplicated passion that he did not own. He’d made her come with magic, pressed into her, into her mouth, draining her aura so that she might carry more of his power. Most healers knew how to carry out a massage. Had he learned _all_ those other skills from books? She doubted it.

But Solas did not seem inclined to recreate that either. Kneeling between her legs – and she could feel his bare thighs now, pressed in between hers – he reached up to caress her long red hair, moving it off to the side away from her face, to expose the buttons. He pressed a kiss on the back of her neck, making her shiver with delight.

Even after everything he’d put her through, she still responded to his touch.

There must have been sixteen buttons, and he dropped the same light kiss on her skin after each one, gradually drawing down her spine. Sixteen buttons, sixteen kisses. It was entirely unnecessary: she could have imagined her dress away as easily as he’d removed his shirt and leggings.

Equally unnecessarily, he lay on top of her, a heavy weight that sank her further into the pillows, his bare chest flush against her naked back. She felt remarkably safe, cocooned by him, and said as much, to reassure him.

“I could go to sleep like this,” she said, and felt his arms tighten around her, wrapping around the dress. “Is this one of the fantasies you saw?”

“No,” he said, nuzzling into her neck, and punctuating his words with kisses and tentative licks. “In your imagination I had much… less patience, and far more… confidence. I don’t… know if I can… live up to… that.”

“So this is one of your fantasies? The forest, the dress, the kisses?”

“Mm-hm,” he said, rolling them over so that they both lay on their sides. The movement shifted her down so that she could feel the tip of his edhis pressing in between her legs through a thin layer of silk. He seemed in no hurry to remove the material, but began to push the dress down gently from her shoulders, exposing the top of her breasts. “Please tell me if this is too fast, _vhenan_.”

Virla smiled. It did feel like they had all the time in the world, and that he was determined to make the most of it. After a few more gentle strokes, his fingers inching down her skin, she found herself relaxing into the restful cadence of his movements. “I love you, Solas. We are… not in a hurry, are we?”

He chuckled, hooking a finger into her dress to brush it against the top of her nipple. He was determined to touch every inch of her body, to mark it as his forever. “Unusual as that seems, we are not.”

Then he paused, and whispered: “I want to live out your fantasies too. On the other side of the Veil. Your dreams are real, they deserve to be made real. We should make love on the desk in the rotunda, by the fire in your room, in the caves underneath Suledin Keep, in a tent while camping in the Hissing Wastes, in all these places. And I promise I will do my best to be as impatient as you could wish.”

She shuddered hard with desire, feeling the silk grow sticky between her legs as he shifted, pressing his hard edhis more firmly up against her ass. With a swift movement he pulled the dress down to her waist, and cupped his hands underneath her breasts, kissing her neck with a sudden ferocity. She could almost feel how sharp his teeth were. Her skin was hot and cold, licked with magic, entirely in his power.

And then he relaxed the pressure, resumed his quiet ministrations, allowing her to feel his fingers, feel… adored. He carried on like this for longer than she would have thought possible – two or three or four hours, perhaps – alternating hot bursts of passion that tested the limits of her terror with long slow periods of gentle attention, vowing his love to every scar and blemish on her body, every curve and indent.

And all the time, he kept his edhis pressed against her, slowly shifting and adjusting until it lay between her legs, rubbing up against her clit in time with each press of his fingers. The dress was no more than a strip of silk that wound around her waist and legs. His fingers were worshipping, drifting lower, lazy and assured, thrumming with the slightest hint of lightning. Her breathing was deep, so relaxed that she felt as if she were sleeping in the Fade, lulled into a state of arousal so heightened that she could just…

The reverie was shattered by a loud series of knocks. _Knocks… on what door?_ she wondered.

Then Solas, and the forest, vanished.

  



	4. Desire

Virla’s eyes flew open. It was still dark, moonlight filtering through the windows… and chilly, the fire having burnt to embers. She was on her own. Her hair was a mess, and shorter. The velvet between her fingers and her thighs, the shirt still lying on the floor, and the heaviness of the Veil all added confirmation that she was awake.

She did not want to be awake.

Every fibre in her body craved him, craved his presence. She was dripping with sweat: desire pouring off her like water over the Silver Falls. Desire that fell cold and sizzled on to steaming hot frustration at the interruption.

A quick glance around the room showed that nobody stood at the balcony doors. No raven was tapping; there was no owl, no Keeper. Someone must be at the lower door, leading up from the tower stairs. Someone who had better have a good reason for being here, for stopping… well, whatever they had been about to do.

Pushing back the heavy silk covers, Virla ran to the top of the stairs, barefoot in her velvet robe… and hesitated, her mind engaging at last. The door was closed. The knocking had stopped. She and Solas hadn’t worked out how they were going to officially arrive here. What if she just… ignored it? That was a reasonable plan, wasn’t it?

Carefully, she felt out through the Veil, trying to sense a presence beyond the door. She couldn’t feel anything, except maybe someone moving down the stairs. There was nobody near the door. Maybe she could sleep again, could find him in the Fade, could…

Virla was under the covers again before she’d had a chance to think, back in the relative warmth. Her body throbbed with want, too urgent to let her fall into the Fade, no matter how she buried her face in the pillows. The dreams they’d shared before tonight were tenuous and difficult to grasp, but one particular memory sang within her mind, bringing heat to her cheeks. It formed an overpowering urge she knew she had to act on.

She’d watched him often enough. It was hard to think she’d not tried this before, but fear and constraint had prevented her. Closing her eyes and moving her knees and thighs apart, she imagined holding a shape within her hand, pulling power from the Fade to shape a firmness, a longish round thing, something which with she could slake her wanton desire for him. Something to get her through the morning. Fury drove out embarrassment: she was the Dread Wolf’s mistress, and she’d fuck herself if she had to.

The magic slid through her dress as if she were naked, and she gasped as it teased her through the bindings, then again as she slammed it into her and drew it out, letting it move of its own accord without the need for her to hold it. Eyes closed, settling into the furious rhythm, she could imagine it was him behind her, chasing his own desperate release. Thrusting, breathless, she arched her lower back and drew her knees up, straining at the covers, pushing at the limits of her own imagination to feel his clever hands instead of hers. His hands drawing her up to meet him, sliding round, lightning flaring from his fingertips, and fire, and frost. Close, so close…

He’d trained her well. The wave crashed out over the shore, gulls flew screaming inland, and Virla lay there, shivering and close to tears. She turned on to her back, and bit her thumb, looking around wild-eyed for signs of retribution. _Good girls didn’t do this_ , Keeper Deshanna had said, once, adding: _at least not in sight of the camp._

It hadn’t been her, then, but one of the others – caught in an aravel experimenting – but she’d always been the good girl, the fourth mage who had had to toe the line or be expelled. _I am a woman now,_ she told herself, and took a shaky breath, for courage. The anger had entirely dissipated, leaving her trembling.

A flicker of movement caught her eye, and she sat up, seeing the shadow of a raven transform into that of a familiarly tall man who reached out for the handle of the balcony door. _Solas._

Her heart was pounding, and it was only at his look of horror, seen across the room as he stepped inside, that she realised there were flames creeping up her dress, dancing out from underneath the covers. Instinctively, she threw up a barrier, but that only trapped the flames inside. _Stupid, stupid._ It was her own magic, she couldn’t shut it out! Before she could let out a scream, Solas ran across the room.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered, throwing out his hands towards her.

Magic washed across her like a shower of icy rain, dousing the flames and any last remaining shreds of pride. She felt him wrench the covers away, checking her over for burns. Her face was certainly burning, flushed by her actions and from shame. An amateur mistake, and for him to see it…

She felt herself gathered into his arms, cradled against a fine woollen robe, his hands stroking her hair. His scent was marred by the acrid smell of burning: burnt velvet, silk and cotton. Thankfully not skin – she’d smelled that often enough, gods knew, that she’d recognise it instantly.

“Hush, _da’len_ , the flames are gone,” said Solas, speaking in a low voice he might have used to console a frightened child. “It is safe now, you can open your eyes. _Ir abelas,_ I did not mean to…”

Virla leaned back, and met his eyes. “It is not your fault, I…”

He didn’t seem to be listening, but stared down at the ruins of her dress. The arms and most of its skirt were salvageable, but the bodice and upper skirt were ruined, crumbling into ash. Bindings preserved her modesty, such as it was. They were only lightly scorched, but the fact that they could be seen at all was…

“Why did you wake up?” asked Solas. A light flush suffused his own cheeks, as if suddenly conscious of his presence on the bed; on her bed, with her. He looked away, but didn’t attempt to move her off his lap. She was sitting on his thigh, his arm a warm reminder wrapped around her waist.

She tried to focus on the question, not on how he made her feel. “Somebody was knocking. Not at the balcony doors, I don’t think. At the door leading up from the tower.”

“Ah…” said Solas, bringing up his free hand to dust a speck of ash from her cheek. She shivered again at his touch, leaning into his hand. “I thought… I thought I had scared you. With… with what I was doing?”

“No, no, not at all,” said Virla. “I was furious they had woken me up! I wanted to be with you, to be there.”

A smirk replaced the fear in his eyes. “So you set yourself on fire out of anger? Not very wise, _vhenan_.”

She flushed harder, and tried to cover the gaps in her dress with her arms. He had a way of making her feel exposed: physically, intellectually, romantically. “Not… exactly,” she whispered, hiding her face in his chest.

The silence stretched out, and she could feel him trying to suppress his amusement.

“If you guessed, don’t be smug about it,” she muttered into his shoulder. “I was… experimenting.”

The only answer was a tightening of his arms around her, but the sensation of incipient laughter disappeared. He made her feel naked, this close, pressed up in his aura. It was heady, comforting, terrifying, as if she were in between the paws of a great stone wolf that everybody knew turned into flesh at midnight.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, as she let out a whimper. She couldn’t stop thinking about his hands, his tongue, the firmness of the muscles in his legs, his…

She gulped. “I… I want to tell you. I don’t want to have secrets from you. I was… thinking of you, and… and… I _want_ you, Solas. I want you to take me now. I don’t want to wait until we see the Keeper. Please… please…”

Fen’Harel – and in the moonlight he did look like Fen’Harel, sharp-eared and angular – took a deep, shuddering breath, clearly holding himself back. He tipped up her head with his hand under her chin so she was forced to look at him, and pressed the softest of kisses on her lips.

Virla strained upwards, eager for more, but he leant back out of reach, shaking his head sadly.

“Please…” she whispered, putting up both hands to try to draw his head down, running her thumbs over his cheekbones, her fingers down the sensitive sides of his neck.

“No, _vhenan_ ,” he said, though he closed his eyes as if her touch was as irrestible to him as his was to her.

If he weren’t so strong, she could pull him down on the bed beside her, force him to feel her body tight against his own. Surely she could wear down his resolve. She tried again: “Please, _‘ma sa’lath_.”

He shook his head, pulling her hands along with the movement. “Virlath…” he sighed: “I want to, more than anything else in the world I want to. But think! Whoever came up here before the dawn will have had good reason. The door must be locked. They will have gone to fetch the keys. They will return. Who holds the keys?”

“Baron Desjardins,” said Virla, with a sigh of resignation. She let her hands fall away again – they were still trembling – and looked ruefully down at her dress. “I suppose you are right. It would not do for us to be interrupted twice. The first time was bad enough. I suppose it would not be Keeper Hawen again?”

“I assume your Keeper would fly up here,” said Solas. “In any case, you should get changed.”

Virla frowned. “I liked these robes. Do you suppose I could…” she waved her hand at them, “…fix them?”

He chuckled. “I think you have expended enough mana for the moment. Do it later. Wear fresh clothing. You have a well-stocked wardrobe here, I would assume. I will mend the sheets then watch the stairs.”

She looked at him narrowly, suspecting trickery. “You don’t…”

“I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, no. Although I admit… I have attempted to give that impression more than once in my life, using magical perception of my surroundings. It is observant of you to notice that.”

Solas lifted her by her waist on to the bed, and stood up, brushing the ash off his robes. She sat for a few seconds simply watching him, remembering how long she’d wanted him to be with her, and worked on being content with only his presence. A warm glow filled her heart, the shock of the waking and the fire subsiding, and she realised once again how lucky she had been, to come through everything… and to escape with him.

As she walked to the wardrobe, a surge of magic shivered through the Veil – Solas restoring the sheets as he’d suggested – and she looked over her shoulder to see him neatly tucking in the covers, smoothing down each layer and plumping up the pillows. _I have the Dread Wolf making my bed,_ she thought, and giggled.

He looked up, arrested with a pillow caught between his hands, and a slow smile spread across his face.

“ _Ar lath, ‘ma vhenan,_ ” he said. “See, I can be useful!”

She giggled again, feeling weak and lightheaded, overflowing with joy and love. When was the last time she ate? “Next time, bring me breakfast in bed,” she called. Her head was deep in the wardrobe, and so she didn’t see him Fade-step across the room, and shrieked when he grabbed her around the waist.

Before she’d adjusted to that, he was kissing the side of her neck, playfully teasing. His hands deftly untied the knot that had given her so much trouble the previous night, and loops of singed golden braid fell to the floor.

She leaned back in his arms, her heart racing again. “I thought we weren’t going to…”

“We don’t have time for that, no, but surely just a few kisses…”

“Hypocrite! Wait, listen…” She could hear conversation on the stairs below, and she still wasn’t out of her ruined dress. “That’s Cassandra’s voice. And Desjardins. We could… fly away?”

He had let go of her, turning away, becoming the general again as he strode to the head of the stairs. Orders were flung at her, as rapid as on a battlefield. “No, get changed. We never wrote a note to anyone last night. The Seeker is a friend to both of us, and your Keeper already knows we’re here. Let’s talk to her.”

Virla had already wriggled out of her dress, and rolled it into a ball to hide at the foot of the wardrobe. The brown leather trousers, silken undershirt and red jacket of her Winter Palace attire were clean and pressed, and here were the sash and belt. Somewhere – _ah, here!_ – were clean socks, and the boots that matched the outfit.

She cast a glance at Solas’ back – primly turned away, like the consummate actor he was – and decided against changing her bindings. It didn’t feel right, and it would take too long. Cassandra’s voice echoed up the stairs as she scrambled into her trousers and undershirt. She was doing up the buttons of the shirt as she heard the door open, its familiar creak of warning. She’d always found that useful as Inquisitor, told them never to oil it.

The conversation stopped abruptly as her two – she presumed – friends opened the door. Pulling on her socks, she wished she could see Cassandra’s face. Cassandra – _unlike Desjardins?_ – knew that Solas was Fen’Harel.

Solas broke the silence. “Seeker! Baron! It is good to see you both. My lady Herald will be delighted to see you.”

“Solas…” said Cassandra, sounding wary. _One boot, two boots._ “The reports said that you were Tranquil.”

“Virlath found a way to reverse it,” said Solas. “I am here by her invitation. I assure you I mean you no harm.”

“Where is her Worship?” Desjardins’ Orlesian accent was as pronounced as ever, but sounded a little strained.

“I’m here,” called Virla, then, as they began to climb the steps: “If you would just wait a minute, please?”

“Her Worship is getting dressed?” The strain in the Baron’s voice had gone, replaced by amusement. _Jacket!_

Solas looked a little uncomfortable. Indeed, she hadn’t thought about the problems they might have if this came to Hawen’s attention, and from the look of it, as she tightened the sash, nor had he. “Ye-es,” he said, eventually.

She could almost hear Cassandra clapping her hands in excitement at the thought of them sharing a bed. “Solas…” she breathed, and Virla had never loved her Nevarran accent so much, “…are you two… together?”

“It’s…” he began, and she could hear the word _complicated_ as clearly as if he’d spoken it aloud.

Virla ran hands through her hair, hoped there was no more ash on her face, and Fade-stepped across the room, to just out of sight of the stairs. Then she stepped into view, standing where she always should be: next to Solas.

“Yes, Cassandra,” she said, a beaming smile across her face, shining equally on her friend, her chatelain and her lover. “Yes. The simple answer is yes. We are together. The Blight is defeated. The threats are no more.”

Cassandra was frowning at her, as if she hadn’t heard a word of what she’d said. “Virla! Your… arm! It’s back!”

Desjardins took a double take, realising he had missed the obvious. Solas kept his face straight, though his eyes were twinkling, and added, dryly: “You will doubtless wish to confirm neither of us is possessed, Seeker.”  

The Seeker raised her eyebrows, then nodded, and walked up the stairs. Virla could feel her reaching power out to touch them both, sensing through the prism of her faith. She held out her hand for the Nevarran to inspect.

“It is real, then?” said Cassandra. “Dorian said you could bring it back from memory, but this feels permanent.”

“As real as the Left Hand of the Divine,” said Solas, meeting Cassandra’s eyes squarely. In that moment Virla felt something settle, as if Solas had finally acknowledged the Andrastian faith, and Cassandra his true nature.

“It is permanent,” agreed Virla. “Solas assisted me in learning how to bring its memory across the Veil.”

Solas bowed, and led the group into the room, gesturing for Virla and Cassandra to sit. “It is an old elven technique. I would be happy to share it with any who have the capacity to learn it, should that be of assistance.”

“You are not possessed,” said Cassandra to Virla, as if that were an afterthought. Her face softened, as she looked between them. “I am truly glad to see you both. And I am sorry for intruding this early. It was important.”

Virla remembered her fury, and smiled – both at Cassandra and at herself. “I am glad to see you, my friend. How can we help you?”

  



	5. Friendship

Cassandra’s important errand had turned out to be not so important in the grand scheme, thought Solas, unable to keep the smile from his lips. His Virlath, home and safe, was listening avidly as Cassandra began to relate everything she might have missed over the last six months. The Divine was arriving that afternoon, and of course she could stay in Virla’s room, Virla could sleep… well, anywhere Desjardins might find to put her. It was Leliana, after all.

He was walking Desjardins down the stairs. Virla’s chatelain was more trusting than he’d have been to leave the Seeker alone with two powerful mages. But then, the Baron had never been in the Inquisition’s inner circle – perhaps he didn’t know enough to know what he should fear. And Cassandra was the fabled Hero of Orlais… the woman who’d saved the old Divine, and started the Inquisition. Why shouldn’t he take her word on trust?

Quietly, Solas told himself to let it go: it wasn’t the man’s job to mistrust everyone. The Baron was a friend of Josephine’s father – _such a clever girl, she could charm wolves to dance with hares –_ his role was to make sure that everyone had food and blankets, to ensure that nobles would not see the elf in Skyhold as a threat, to…

“I see that you have repaired the stairs in the tower,” he said, as they closed the door to the upper chamber and moved down to the lower door. He added an approving nod: even Solas-the-apostate might have dared that.

Desjardins smiled, replying in his soft accented voice: “It was long overdue. Josephine told me that the Inquisitor would never allow repairs to her own quarters to take precedence over the needs of others.”

“That does sound like her,” said Solas, unable to resist adding: “I am glad, then, that you were able to resolve all of the other pressing issues as well.”

The joke made Desjardins chuckle, and he spread his hands expansively: “Maybe not all of them, messere.”

His use of that honorific brought a lump to Solas’ throat, remembering the first time he had been addressed as that by a stranger, and not as knife-ear, elf, apostate, mage. It had been the archivist, what was his name… Banon? That was it. Archivist Banon had watched him painting, quietly observing, and offered him his help in sourcing any rare pigments he should wish. It was hard to remember the man he’d been, who would have sacrificed them all.

Not happily, not willingly… but still. The painful thought was there, and the fact that he would have died – had died – to prevent it… that did not entirely make it right.

They were at the lower door, Desjardins’ neatly gloved hand reaching for the handle. Solas wanted to go back upstairs to Virla – see her, have her shine her light upon him, have her drive away his darkness – but he needed to be a person too, for her. Be stronger, better, more **real** …

“Banon…” he said, forcing his voice to sound assured. “The archivist. Is he here? I should like to see him.”

“Why, yes, messere. I would be happy to ask him to wait on you at your convenience. Perhaps you are thinking of your fresco? It is a magnificent work, we have taken great care. Though, if you permit, might I ask…?”

Solas inclined his head, lacing his trembling hands behind his back. “What is it you wish to know?”

The Baron tipped his head on one side, considering. “Did you mean it to remain unfinished? Everyone who visits asks me, and I do not know what to tell them. The Inquisitor told Josephine it meant there is always hope that things could be better, that nothing is inevitable. But Banon said she’d told him it meant that beauty is fleeting.”

“Those all sound like good answers to me,” said Solas. His head was throbbing suddenly, pained with too many memories at once, but he tried to ignore it. “Maybe it will start a new fashion for uncompleted works.”

Desjardins laughed. “I see you understand our Orlesian culture well, messere. Indeed, there is now a proposal to remove urns and statues from the Empress’ Winter Palace. Perfection no longer need mean perfect symmetry.”

“I would not wish to be the cause of a loss of beauty in Halamshiral,” said Solas, his tone sharpening. It was not so long ago that that same Empress Celene had burned down elven slums to stop a riot.

“Messere, you were there the night the Inquisitor saved the Empress. Val Royeaux is in your debt.”

He nodded, lips set thin, but did not answer. Behind his back, his hands clenched involuntarily.

Desjardins paused, then sighed. “I mean no offence. I am aware that Halamshiral was the capital of the Dalish kingdom gifted by Andraste. I have read the reports the Inquisition found of Red Crossing, of the Second Age.”

Solas bowed, relaxing slightly. The man meant well. “I appreciate that you do not call it the Glory Age.”

“It is one of Divine Victoria’s minor reforms. She has opened the Chantry to male clerics and to people of all races. Thus the Chant is sung in every corner of the world. And so we await the Maker’s return.”

A polite smile was all that was needed now – the chatelain was managing valiantly to suppress his yawns, clearly keen to return to his bed. The mages among them would tell tales of the Silver City soon enough today.

Solas glanced upwards at the door above, and wondered how much time he’d get alone with Virla, before she had to meet with the Divine. Part of him dreaded meeting Leliana, her idealism far more in tune with Virla’s attitude to life than with his own. They created truths; he – and Cassandra – uncovered and endured them.

What songs might the Nightingale sing of him, what mantle of godhood might be forced upon them?

He’d have to speak with Virla, warn her to be careful with her theories. Yes, she was discreet, but she had no idea, no conception of the scale of the changes she’d unleashed! So young, to have such power…

Turning back to Desjardins, he found that the man’s expression had changed to one of sympathy.

“You look worried, messere.”

It was too much effort to fake a neutral expression now, so he simply nodded, offering no explanation.

“Lady Cassandra will not hurt her.”

“That is not what I am concerned about,” he replied, still frowning.

The Baron put a hand on his arm, and it was a measure of his distraction that he made no attempt to shake it off. Desjardins spoke quickly, as if aware that he might be speaking out of turn.

“I do not know where you have been the last few years, nor do I understand half of the tales the elves here tell of you, but I am an old man, and I can recognise love when I see it. Go back to our Inquisitor, messere, and do not leave her again. You will thank me when you are old.”

Solas swallowed, touched by the Baron’s unexpected words as well as by the passion with which he spoke, and blinked back sudden tears. “I do not intend to leave her, Baron.”

“Good,” said Desjardins. “Her own people no longer understand the role she plays. Maybe they will accept you both, maybe they will not. I do not know, I wish you well. But together, I am sure you will find a way.”

For a wild moment, he was tempted to confide in the man, to tell him everything.

Instead, he found himself repeating, blankly serious: “As long as she wants me, I remain.”

“That will be a long time then,” said Desjardins. “I am still blinded by the brilliance of her smile; surely only Andraste herself was more beautiful. Ah… to be young, in the springtime! Now, I must leave you, and hope that I may return to my dreams. Lady Cassandra woke me from a most exquisite one. My sympathies, messere.”

Before Solas could correct any of his presuppositions, the Baron was gone.

****

He was still sitting on the stairs twenty minutes later, watching the dawn light creep across the floor, listening to the murmurs of the women’s voices from above. It was as good a place as any to meditate, and Virla as safe as anybody might be, with her friend.

He closed his eyes. Friendship was important… and for a glaring moment he missed Sophiyel again – her wisdom and her love for him, enduring all those centuries.

They’d saved so many, but not all.

It was terrifying, how little he knew of Virlath – four years since they’d met, and most of that a web of deceit and lies on his part, hardly conducive to her being open – and even more, how little she knew of him.

Twenty-three years old – a child, for all she had the body of a woman – and her Keeper would have had her take a mate two years ago, had he not existed!

Her Keeper, who wanted him to use her as a means to birth more children for the clan.

And in the Fade, nine eggs that had to hatch in three months’ time.

Success so huge, and wholly farcical, as Caritas had put it.

He breathed in slowly and tried to let it all seem meaningless: the happiness co-equal with the pain; decisions placed securely in the future, where they could not reach back to the present; the past a work of art that hung, unrivalled, on the wall.

****

He was still sitting on the stairs twenty minutes after that, warm in a patch of sunlight, when he became aware of a pair of hands roughly shaking him awake. Hands connected to a pair of yellow plaid trousers.

“Oi, elfy! Come on, you can’t sleep here, that’s just silly. Hey!”

The barrier was instinctive, but as he opened his eyes he saw a hurt look on Sera’s face as she leaped back, almost missing her footing on the stairs, and catching on to the banister rail.

“Sera…” he called, cancelling the barrier. “ _…ir abelas,_ I did not mean to use magic. I had… fallen asleep?”

“Duh,” said Sera, sticking her tongue out at him for good measure. “How’s it feel to be back to normal again, feelings and all?”

He remembered from when he was tranquil, Sera with the elves out in the forest camps, always suspicious, always making sure that Tallis spoke to her before she told the others anything about her times with Virla.

And Sera and Dagna had got the eluvian to him on the moon, saving him from an eternity of solitude, from a living death among the spirits. Prompted by his now-dead Titan brother, naturally, but still… they’d done it.

He took a deep breath, ready to speak…

…but Sera had already interrupted: “Nothing to say? That’s not like you, elfy. How about a nice long enormous sentence that wanders around for an hour and has a piss before getting to something that might sound like thank you?”

He shook his head, a genuine smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You already know that I am greatly in your debt, Sera. You saved me from a terrible fate. I simply am not sure how best to thank you.”

She laughed, pleased with herself. “Yeah, right. Stuck in the Fade’s no fun, right? Knew you were back when the horses came in, saw the plume of smoke from your tower as well. Virla’s tower’s yours now too, right?”

There was no point in pretending with Sera, she always saw right through you. And that meant she was exactly the right person to trust with some things. He grinned, and took the bait. “Or, you might say, my tower’s Virla’s.”

“Right, because that’s not innuendo. Which reminds me. Thank me. Help me win a bet with Dagna.”

“What kind of bet?”

“Dead easy, for the likes of you.”

Solas raised an eyebrow, and leant back against the stairs. “This is you, so it’s going to be offensive.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t _most people_ , Dread Wolf. By the way, I painted your people with red ink so it looks like vallaslin. Hawen thinks you’ve got a whole country of elves for a clan. Bound to impress him, right?”

She cackled, and he rolled his eyes. “I think I could have impressed my future father-in-law without that.”

“So you are going to marry her then? I mean, good for you, because they’re really elfy, and you’re their worst enemy, right? Gonna be tough… wait! Father-in-law? Hawen’s Virla’s father? She thinks she’s an orphan.”

He sighed. _Red vallaslin, on city elves._ “She doesn’t know. Which makes all of what’s about to come more…”

Sera interrupted, jabbing her finger at him repeatedly. “Of course she doesn’t know, because everyone would know, because she isn’t one to lie about a thing like that. No offense… liar. You told me that because you want me to tell you if you should tell her?” He nodded, and she frowned. “When did you find out?”

“While I was tranquil. It was in a report I read. One of my agents had been talking to spirits who had watched his dreams, spoken with him. They described an illicit tryst he’d had with a woman from clan Lavellan, three Arlathvhens ago. I don’t know if he knows, for sure. But the fact he took her on as First… suggests he might.”

“Illicit tryst,” said Sera, managing by some miracle to keep her voice low. “Can’t you just say he banged her?”

“I could… if I didn’t want him as my father-in-law, at some point in the future. Which is the other problem.”

“Meaning?”

“I want to give her time to make her mind up, chance to get to know me now that I’m not lying.”

Sera looked up to the roof of the chamber, lost in thought. “You never actually lied, you know, right?”

Solas smiled, but sadly. “I know.”

“You can’t tell her,” said Sera, shaking her head decisively. “S’not your thing to tell.”

“That’s the conclusion I had come to too. Thank you, Sera.”

“Not saying that for you, but her. It’s up to him to tell her, otherwise she’ll think he was a liar. So… you want me to pull strings, try to get a way that makes him want to tell her?”

“That was the general idea, yes,” said Solas, relieved she’d caught on so quickly. “In a way that can’t be traced back to me, so Virla never knows I knew. Not to mention Keeper Hawen.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. All for Virla, right?”

“All for Virla,” agreed Solas, then, because he knew he ought to, asked: “So… what’s the bet?”

Sera giggled, and pointed up at the closed door at the top of the stairs. “Dagna bet me that no-one would dare have sex in the war room while the Divine was visiting.”

Solas choked, his ears suddenly flaming red. “And you think I would dare that? With the Inquisitor?”

“Herald now, innit? And… yes?”

His eyes widened. “This is how you want me to thank you? Wait… how did you know the Divine was visiting?”

“We called her, right? With one of those sending crystal thingies. Big breach in the sky, return of Andraste, probably the Maker coming too, for all we know,” said Sera, making a crude gesture. “Divine ought to be here.”

Solas thought quickly. With a little persuasion, the Divine’s visit could last a long time… and maybe he could get Desjardins to put a bed in there, and… “What proof do you need? That we’ve done it there, I mean.”

Sera looked crestfallen. “Oh. Hadn’t thought about that. Can’t watch you, that’s just… urgh.”

“I could introduce Dagna to a spirit who had watched from the Fade, who’d swear it had seen us... banging.”

The girl called Red Jenny grinned, and grabbed his hand to shake it. “Deal!” she cried.

“Deal,” he echoed, weakly. He could only hope that Virla would see the funny side of it as well.

  



	6. Intimacy

That ridiculous bet agreed, Sera slipped past him on the stairs, two at a time as usual. Wiping his hands surreptitiously on his robes, Solas got to his feet, and began to follow her back upstairs at a more sedate pace.

He was going slowly to give himself time to think, but rational thought eluded him. He hadn’t planned for this. He’d planned for death, for loneliness, for misery… but not for joy, for love, for life. He ought to be planning what to say to Keeper Hawen, or weighing up how best to respond to questions from the Divine and her faithful – particularly about the recent past – but all he could think about was Sera’s bet.

Was it really his antiquated sense of honour that had compelled him to accept it, or was he seeking external justification for desires he had repressed for far too long? The thought of Virla in his arms, naked, bent over that table – for who needed a bed? – refused to leave him.

He’d meant to take her in the Fade, or thought he must have meant to. Fen’Harel cursed his slowness. Awake, desire was far more urgent: an ache that gnawed at his resolve, that made a mockery of modesty. Every part of him was known to her, had shuddered at her touch, her lips: why now draw back?

Only that final step remained: to thrust and spill himself within her, in full emotional possession.

Seeking to be dispossessed of reason, make mind subordinate to body, as if they were not entirely linked.

With each step he climbed he seemed more and more ridiculous to himself: an ancient being pretending to be real, seeking release in mindlessness, in moments that would soon be past and gone. He could immortalise them in paint, symbols obscuring the lewdity, transforming it to pure emotion. A spirit’s task, translated into art.

How hard it was to live within the minutes! To touch or not to touch red hair. To speak, agree, dispute, caress.

To bond himself to another… that was the work of centuries. She was twenty-three – beautiful, brave and alive – and all he could now think about was how to get her to the war room, and what they would do there.

Sera was already in the room by the time he got there, almost as nervous and jittery with excitement as he was himself, though she didn’t trouble to hide it. He might as well have been twenty-three himself, for all the composure he was managing to maintain. He had an actual erection – here, in front of Sera and Cassandra! – as hard as dragonbone, and only barely hidden by the folds of his cloaks. The tips of his ears were hot.

Fen’Harel stood beside the fireplace, and burned. Every time he closed his eyes, he could feel the softness of her skin, the swell of her breasts, the taut perfection of her body; taste her neck, her warmth, her aura. He could hear the way she’d pleaded with him… _please, vhenan_ … and he knew, he knew, he knew the time was coming soon when he would give her what she longed for from him.

It might as well be Sera’s bet, for he could not resist her much longer.

****

Virla found her gaze drawn up to Solas as he positioned himself like a sentry guarding the fire – he’d taken the time to light it before he’d taken Desjardins downstairs – and was startled by the hunger in his eyes, scarcely veiled.

She looked away, unaccountably flustered. Sera was sitting on the side of the bed, legs splayed out, feet kicking in mid-air, telling Cassandra all the details of the battle against Lusacan. The Seeker sat severely on the cream and gold divan, her armour reflecting the early morning light that streamed in through the windows.

Virla had forgotten how much light this chamber got. How right it felt to be back here, in her room.

She’d never had a room before the Conclave. Just a mattress in a crowded aravel, one girl among the others. No-one had ever thought she’d save the world, or thought much of her at all. _The fourth mage…_ they had said, and everyone had known she’d have to leave some day. Like Fen’Harel himself, set facing away from the camp.

The light illuminated the grey streaks in Cassandra’s hair, the shadows under her eyes. Virla dragged herself away from distracting thoughts of trysts with wolves in woods, looked down at her hands, and told herself to play hostess. The Inquisition itself was gone, but still they looked to her for guidance.

All except Solas. Those six months in his citadel had shown her just how easily the mantle of command hung round his shoulders, authoritative even when denuded of emotion, when ill, when burning with fever. Bull had once said he didn’t think that Solas was the type to be the agent of another, to do somebody else’s dirty work.

Even the word _dirty_ was problematic: it made her think of thrusting magic, his hands on her breasts.

Too easy, to long to be the clay within his capable hands, to mould herself to his desires. That was what he dreaded, wasn’t it? – carrying the burden of responsibility himself, alone, with nobody to share it. Maybe if she told him that she wasn’t ready to be bonded, that she took his concerns seriously… maybe that would help?

She’d got distracted again, and blushed; lifted her eyes from her hands, but in so doing, could not help but glance at Solas. That look, that hungry look of his, was doing absolutely nothing for her resolve.

Virla felt Cassandra’s eyes on her too, a curious softness in them. She’d told the Seeker what they had agreed she could – yes, she’d been in the citadel with Solas, researching a way to reach out to the only demon strong enough to restore his emotions, the Nightmare that they’d met inside the Fade. It had become an Envy demon. They’d killed it later – yes, the one she’d warned Hawke about, it was dead now. Solas had got trapped in the Fade, but Dagna and Sera had sent an eluvian to him through the Breach. That’s how he’d got out.

It left out all the important parts, but those were far too dangerous to tell.

Sera was explaining how she’d shot an arrow straight into the dragon’s eye, gesturing with an imaginary longbow. Solas managed not to flinch, the hungry look fading into momentary pain, a memory of agony.

Virla took the opportunity of the sudden silence that followed. “Is anybody else hungry… for breakfast, I mean?” she added hastily, as Sera snorted.

“What was it like, being eaten by the Dread Wolf in the forest? Sloppy wet tongue, or does he like to bite you?”

Cassandra looked almost as shocked as Solas. “Sera! Solas was tranquil… you can’t imagine that they did that!”

Sera seemed momentarily embarrassed, as if that thought had not occurred to her. “Abelas said she was his mistress,” she said sulkily. “What’s mistressing, if not that kind of thing?”

“I am not having this conversation,” said Cassandra, standing up. Her cheeks were as pink as roses. “Sera, you and I will go downstairs and arrange for breakfast to be delivered up here for the Inquisitor and Solas.”

Sera looked as if she was about to argue, but then her tummy made a loud rumbling noise. She scowled down at it, before shrugging and springing to her feet. “Ok, ok, but only because I’m hungry too. Can I choose what they have? I’m thinking… something with lots of cream in it. And sausages! Nice thick round ones.”

Cassandra sighed, and marched her round the corner, down the stairs. “We will be _at least_ thirty minutes.”

As soon as they were gone, Solas filched Virla’s key from the table where Desjardins had left it, and slipped down to lock the door… from the inside, this time. Virla wandered over to the balcony, throwing open the doors that looked out on the mountains, trying to cool her cheeks. Outside, she hugged her arms around her, fingering the sash of her jacket, and sought to compose her thoughts and slow her heartbeat. 

She felt a pair of arms slip round her, and Solas’ breath hot on her cheek, undoing all her progress. He pressed a kiss on her neck, and she tilted her head the other way to allow him better access, sighing in ecstatic pleasure.

“I think we were rather obvious, _vhenan,_ ” he said, pressing more kisses on her neck, and the gentlest of bites.

Virla smiled. He seemed less embarrassed than she’d expected, more affectionate. “Not as obvious as Sera!”

“Or Cassandra, for that matter…” He paused, then spoke in a clipped Nevarran accent, higher pitched than his usual baritone. “We will be **at least** thirty minutes.”

“What could we do in thirty minutes?” asked Virla, as innocently as she dared.

“Probably a lot less than Sera imagines, and a lot more than Cassandra does,” said Solas dryly.

“No, the other way!” said Virla. “Cassandra reads Varric’s smutty novels. Her imagination might surprise you.”

Solas chuckled and tightened his arms around her waist, murmuring: “Very well, but I would rather think about your imagination. What were you thinking of, when you set yourself on fire this morning? Specifically.”

“Specifically…” she began, then twisted around to look up at him, a rueful smile on her lips. “Can we go inside?”

“I can’t feel anybody nearby this time,” he assured her, “not even spirits. But by all means…”

He Fade-stepped back across the room, lifting her off her feet and carrying her along. The sudden movement made her catch her breath, and when they tumbled on the bed, he shot out a finger to direct the doors to close. He was as playful as a wolf cub, hiding his sharp teeth behind a lighthearted façade. _Sloppy wet tongue… bite…_

But when he’d looked down at her, there’d been something fragile in his eyes. Something that gave her pause.

“We’re too serious to find this easy,” she said, squirming up the bed out of his grasp.

She’d expected him to follow her, at least to try to cuddle her again, but instead he had stopped. He stayed sitting upright on the bedsheets, clasping his arms around his knees. There was an arrested look on his face as if a sudden and horrible thought had occurred to him. “I am pressurising myself again,” he said, slowly, “trying to be something I am not. You want me to be experienced in this, to know what to do. I don’t. I… don’t.”

Her heart sank, as she crawled back down to him. “You… aren’t interested in sex?”

He shook his head vigorously, a crease between his brows. “I am _very_ interested in sex, _vhenan._ With you. It drives all other thoughts from my mind. I am sorry. I do not wish to cause you further pain. I simply feel… uncomfortable about further intimacy, before we have discussed the matter of our bonding.”

“I thought you wanted time to court me,” said Virla, nodding. “Do we need to ask for that from Hawen? I… can wait, if I have to, you know I would wait for you to be ready. You know that, don’t you?”

She was speaking quickly, placing one hand lightly on his robed arm as she knelt beside him.

He was silent, the crease deepening as if he were furious with himself. Virla tried again: “I have waited… four years. I can wait more. I love you, Solas. I would wait a lifetime for you, if I had to.”

Solas shook his head. “Don’t promise that.” With a heavy sigh, he jerked open the balcony doors again, as if on invisible strings. She followed him out there, retracing their steps, wondering what he was thinking.

He turned to her. “You are immortal now, _vhenan,_ just as I am immortal. Cassandra’s hair is getting grey, but yours will not. You will see them die, _‘ma lath._ You can help them while they live. You cannot stop them dying.”

“I know,” she said, and leant back on the balcony to face him, just as she had done before the first time he had kissed her. _What does this mean, Solas?_

He nodded, looking sad. “Those losses change a person. It is a rare being who can maintain their love, their wisdom, through such losses. You are such a one, and I honour you for it. Haven did not dim you, nor the losses of Adamant… and yet I never saw you treat your people less for knowing that you were leading them to death.”

Virla spread her hands wide, feeling the burden of magic in her palm. “They are people, Solas.”

“They are,” he agreed. “You showed me that. This world is real, and we have the opportunity to help it.”

“And it is not just loss. There is the opportunity for growth, to see things grow. Flowers, trees, Inquisitions…”

“Dynasties, empires… yes, I believe I may have said something of the sort before.” He stopped, and his lips quirked upwards, his hands reaching for each other behind his back. “I believe I am about to surprise you.”

She couldn’t resist. “Sloppy wet tongue, or biting?”

His eyes flashed stormy blue. “Maybe later. Though you hit the mark, as ever. I _was_ thinking of something Sera said. Not now, before we killed Corypheus. She told me elven life was backwards and boring. I said… I said it was said that we had lived at a pace that sustained us for ages. She told me it didn’t sound like living.”

“That sounds as if you want to live.”

“I do.” He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, before dropping on one knee. Her eyes widened as he brought from behind his back a large bouquet of roses and daisies and others she couldn’t name, crimson and peach and white, and offered it up to her, fresh from the Fade, fresh from eight thousand years ago.

She took it, raising it up to inhale its fragrance: a blend of scents familiar and exotic. It seemed a memory of Arlathan, containing flowers she had never seen, as well as ones he knew she loved. “Beautiful…” she breathed.

He grasped her other hand, her right hand. “Will you be my bondmate, Virlath? If your Keeper will allow it.”

“You know I will,” she said, squeezing his hand tightly as if she would never let go.

They were both fighting back tears. “I mean, as soon as you wish,” he said. “A ceremony. While they live.”

“They’re not that old, Solas,” she said, a lump in her throat. “Cassandra is still young enough to bear children. Sera is almost the same age as me. Even Hawen might live another thirty years. Dalish men are strong.”

“As are Dalish women,” he said, finally letting her encourage him to his feet. “As brave as they are beautiful.”

“You are sure about this?”

“Not certain, no. We both know certainty is dangerous. Today Divine Victoria will tell the people of a Silver City, not a golden one.” Solas paused, amusement in his eyes driving out fear and sorrow. “I am willing to take the risk, if you are.”

She’d give him a better reply than he had her. “I love you, Solas. I would marry you today if they let me.”

He laughed. “You still talk in terms of letting. You are queen of the world, _vhenan_ , should you wish.”

Virla grinned, and hid behind the bouquet. “Which is why, unless we fly away, they will want to celebrate it magnificently. We have to give them time to prepare.”

“I don’t suppose I can argue that I am not fond of ceremony,” said Solas, winding his arms around her to hold her close, and dropping a kiss on her forehead. Emotion had driven out lust, for now. “But maybe…”

“What?”

“In three days’ time it is Summerday. If we held it then, there would not be time for too much planning.”

“It is a traditional day for marriage, you are right! And Leliana might still be here. Cassandra came on a griffon. With that, and if you can open the eluvians, we can get everybody here. Josephine is in Antiva. Deshanna in Wycome.”

He smiled, his eyes widening in delight. “A griffon? Really? I am impressed. I should like to ride one again.”

“I don’t think she enjoyed it much,” laughed Virla. “Apparently it’s in the courtyard. Shall we quickly fly around and look? I think we have a few more minutes.”

He nodded, and they spread their wings together.

  



	7. Sustenance

The griffon was a female, juvenile – perhaps two or three years old – with pale grey feathers and a bad temper. She hissed at the young man watching her, resisting his attempts to groom her fur: to clean out the blood and gore and mud. After he had narrowly avoided being bitten, he retreated to the far wall of the battlements, and groaned in frustration as she stalked away, scraping her claws against the flagstones.

She glared up at the ravens flying high above her, as if throwing down a challenge; and Solas found his resolve weakening further. When first they’d seen her from the air, she’d been asleep: an exhausted mound of fur and feathers, sweating and filthy; and even then, he’d felt a shock of recognition: was she meant for him?

Naturally, he’d dismissed the sentimental thought almost as soon as it arose: a consequence of his state of heightened emotional awareness, his love for Virlath spilling over to all creatures of this world.

He’d called to Virla to circle further out, to see the makeshift city near the gates of Skyhold – thousands upon thousands of elves with crimson painted ink upon their faces – and tried to focus on what truly mattered.

The whole world had been set up to defend against a war, and the Blight he’d feared had lasted weeks, not years. Each of those painted elves had a master in Tevinter, or assassins in the Ben’Hassrath, or siblings in Ferelden or Orlais, wondering where they were and who had taken them. Should Skyhold become a pilgrimage for elves, the centre of a elven renaissance, how far should he go to protect them all from the inevitable fallout?

The skies, the portents, the Fade might change, but the world would go on turning.

And his thoughts had been drawn back inexorably to the griffon, wheels and levers locking into place like a complicated dwarven mechanism, the shape of a magnificent plan. As they flew back to the Inquisitor’s tower, the rising sun bathed them in warmth and certain intuition. His twin had left him one last gift.

****

Back in Virla’s chamber for the breakfast meal, his mind was whirling, trying to remember everything he knew about griffons. Sera had disappeared in search of Dagna, so the Seeker had enlisted Scout Harding to open doors while she carried the heavy tray, laden with spiced sausages and bowls of pork oat mash; a jug of the best sack mead.

The dwarf was unusually subdued, and after the initial exclamations of pleasure to see the Herald safely home again, she had sat down cross-legged by the fireplace, hands cupped around the steaming, untouched bowl. For some reason he had been given the desk chair, while Virla and Cassandra had resumed their places on the divan, balancing their own bowls on their knees. Both were devouring the mash, and he smiled quietly at the sight.

He was equally hungry, but would content himself first with a sip of honeyed mead and a silent toast to Caritas.

“The griffon that you rode here on, Cassandra… does she have a name?” he asked, as lightly as he could.

The Seeker paused, a fork loaded with mash poised halfway to her mouth. “How do you know it is a female?” she asked, her brow furrowing in puzzlement. “Even I was not aware of that. We left in a hurry.”

“Griffon scent varies depending on their sex,” he said, truthfully if not entirely honestly. “Her scent is female.”

Cassandra’s eyes flickered down to her armour, as if belatedly realising it needed another thorough clean.

“I don’t think Solas means to imply that you smell of griffon,” said Virla quickly, with a smile at her and a playful frown in his direction. “While you were in the kitchens, we flew over Skyhold, and took a closer look.”

Harding looked up at that, green eyes wide. “You… flew? Do you have a griffon too, your Worship?”

Virla swallowed another forkful of mash, and washed it down with mead, shaking her head slightly as she did so. “Please keep calling me Virla, Lace, when we’re in private. Real normal woman, remember? And… no.”

“Mages can shapeshift,” said Cassandra, as if she were instructing Harding in a lesson. Solas wondered which of them knew that Virla – or himself – could take dragon form, and felt suddenly queasy. If any of them guessed that he had _been_ the dragon Lusacan, this conversation could take a rapid turn for the worse.

“We can take the form of birds,” said Virla, as if she were also keen to direct their thoughts away from that.

The Seeker nodded, adding another helping of sliced sausage meat to her plate. “Sera said she’d seen you become a bird, like we saw Morrigan do at the Temple of Mythal. An owl, or was it a crow?”

“A raven. I haven’t tried an owl,” said Virla. She looked across at him, a question in her eyes, to which he smiled blandly in acknowledgement, fighting back nausea. “I imagine Solas has.”

He nodded, swallowing another sip of mead to calm himself. “As you might imagine, they are superior at night.”

Harding shuddered. He wondered if the Scout were nervous of him, despite their long familiarity. It would be a brave person who did not fear him, he reasoned, if they’d been privy to the Inquisition’s final reports.

Virla looked around the room, her eyes darting from one to another, reading the situation. “Solas, Lace knows you are Fen’Harel. She was one of the few I took into my confidence before I left for Tevinter. It is not your age, or skills, she fears, but the thought of having solid ground so far, far below her with nothing but air beneath…”

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!” cried the Scout, but she directed an apologetic smile at him, and seemed to relax slightly. “It is true, I am afraid of heights. Even being in this tower scares me. I usually don’t come up here.”

He felt it incumbent on him to say something formally, to apologise for his deception. “Seeker, Scout, I am sorry for keeping my true identity a secret from the Inquisitor, and from you all. I never thought she would trust me if she knew if I were the Dread Wolf of Dalish legend, as ancient as the elves we found within the Arbor Wilds. I did not wish to burden her further. I never meant to cause her pain. I hoped she might forget me if I left.”

“I was not wrong to love you,” said Virla, putting her half-finished bowl back on the tray. She came to stand behind him, smiling down at him and lending him her strength. He rested his head back against her chest, willing them all to see she had forgiven him, hoping they would find it in themselves to forgive him too.

“I do not think you were wrong, Solas,” said Cassandra, slowly. “I have thought about it much over the past year. What I find impossible to understand is why you abandoned her again, during the Exalted Council. You knew then that she had not forgotten you, that she still loved you. Why did you not allow her then to go with you?”

“There were other forces at play,” said Virla, answering before he could. “You know how Morrigan was unable to resist her mother, once she had drunk from the Well of Sorrows. Solas was under similar compulsions.”

It wasn’t entirely the same, he thought, but it might well be the simplest way to address the Seeker’s concern, without going into tortuous details. Cassandra’s eyes lit with sudden understanding, fading into compassion.

“Then, you are now free?” she asked, and he nodded, reaching up to interlace his fingers with Virla’s hand that rested on his shoulder. _Free, only to bind myself again. But this… this is choice. I hope._

Harding broke the silence that threatened to extend on, saying, with a nervous giggle: “I am glad you came back. I wasn’t sure what we would do with all of those elves that Sera brought.”

He felt Virla’s hand tighten abruptly, as if that thought had only just occurred to her, and was glad that he had managed to remain one step ahead of her on that at least. He twisted around to look up at her face, in time to see the flicker of panic in her eyes, the premonition of politics and negotiations to come.

“That responsibility is mine, _vhenan_ ,” he said. “I do have some ideas, but thought it would be… prudent to discuss them with you first, and with our friends and allies. You all had the benefit of attending the Exalted Council, of hearing the concerns of Ferelden and Orlais. Besides, I would not wish to be thought… secretive.”

Cassandra ventured a smile, which was a relief – he wasn’t sure that any of them were ready to treat it as a joke – and a tight knot in his chest began to lessen. He disentangled his hand from Virla’s, allowing her if she wished to return to her own seat and her food. For the first time, he picked up his fork, and began to eat.

The Seeker added a third helping of mash to her bowl, and poured herself another draught of mead. “I believe you asked about the griffon, Solas,” she said, her well-trained mind returning to his original topic.

He inclined his head. “Yes. When we saw her just now, a young man was trying unsuccessfully to groom her. I am not unfamiliar with the species, and wondered if I might be of service. Does she have a name?”

“The Warden referred to it – to _her_ – as Zephyr. His name is Caronel: an elven mage. He was meant to fly me on his own griffon here, but it was injured and was left in Kirkwall. This one does not have a rider. It… disliked me.”

 _No rider… oh, Falon, how I hear you still._ He hastened to reassure the Seeker. “She would not have consented to fly you here at all, if she did not respect you. Griffons are notoriously proud.”

“Do you think she might fly away, Solas?” asked Virla, who had gone to open the doors that led to the other balcony, the one that overlooked the courtyard. “I had not even thought of that.”

“They are intelligent creatures,” he said, enjoying the salt taste of the pork on his tongue. “There is precious little food for them within these mountains. They would rather stay where they can rely on being fed.”

Lace Harding frowned, as if trying to understand. She still hadn’t touched her food. “So they are… flying horses?”

“Come and look,” called Virla, from the balcony. “You can see her – Zephyr – over on the battlements.”

“It is a beautiful morning,” agreed the Seeker, stifling a yawn. She drained her mead. “When I saw the giant rock wraiths surrounding Kirkwall, and heard the reports from across Thedas, I feared the world was ending.”

“You did not sleep last night?” asked Solas politely, accompanying her across to the balcony. Harding followed more slowly, perhaps reluctant to see quite how high above the ground they were.

“I have not slept properly for many nights. Though I am used to battle conditions.”

“We all feared the worst,” he agreed. “I am glad that my elves arrived here in time.”

She nodded. “It was very strange. Sera and Dagna kept in touch with us by sending crystal, and with Leliana. From what they say, the dragon here was killed by other dragons, wyverns, golems and your elves, and a great giant woman, a blindfolded woman with a glowing blue rune on her chest. But it was not at the moment of Lusacan’s death that the Breach was closed, and the rock wraiths crumbled, but some short time later.”

“That is fascinating,” he said. “Though battlefields can be confusing, even to those seasoned in fighting.”

Feeling that the Seeker was inclined to continue her search for truth, he turned instead to the Child of the Stone, as she stood clinging on to the open door. “You are welcome to hold on to my arm if it helps,” he said, smiling down at her. “The view is excellent. I would not want you to miss out. I will show you where the griffon is.”

The Scout was genuinely afraid of heights, for she grasped his arm immediately, with a look of gratitude. “Don’t tell anyone,” she pleaded. “I suffer enough jokes about height as it is.”

There was something plucking at the edges of his attention, a faint echo through the Veil. He looked down at his arm, and made his face blank. “I am the soul of discretion,” he promised, and heard Virla choking back a laugh.

He was grateful that she was equally good at keeping secrets – indeed, they all were, in their own ways – and simply smiled again at Harding, while his thoughts ran riot. Gently, so gently that even his beloved might not perceive it, he reached out through the vibrations of the Fade, seeking to be sure.

There it was: a dwarf with an aura. Lace Harding had become… a mage, and might not even know it yet.

It was a logical conclusion, that Virla connecting the dwarves back to the Fade through Valta should make the concept of a dwarven mage a practical possibility, but to have this proof of it so soon… startled him.

“How well did you sleep last night?” he asked the Scout, as if it were merely another polite enquiry.

She jumped, and took a step backward, pulling him away from the balcony, where Virla and Cassandra had begun talking about the difference between wyverns and dragons, a difference of vital importance in Orlais.

Harding stuttered, her eyes now wild. “I… I…”

He walked with her back into the room, right over to the divan. He sat her down on it, and knelt in front of her. “Do not worry about our companions. They will think it simply your fear of heights. You can tell me. You know I am an expert in the Fade. You… dreamed, am I correct?”

“It is not that, I mean… yes, I think so, but…” Harding held her other hand out, not the one that had clasped his arm, and showed him a tiny crimson flame that grew there. “Solas, Solas, help me!”

His heart was beating like a drum, his mind already springing to the chaos that might encompass Orzammar, or Kal-Sharok, or the Ambassadoria in Minrathous, were untrained adult dwarven mages unexpectedly finding their powers. He took a deep breath. “Of course. The Fade is shaped by your will. Simply tell the flame to vanish.”

He watched, intent, as she resolved to conquer her fear, muttering: “Go away!”

“You don’t have to say it,” he said, as the flame persisted, “you have to will it. Imagine how you feel when a troop of bandits come too close to where you are lying low in hiding. You want them to go away, don’t you?”

The flame vanished, and her face melted into relief. “That worked! Maker, Solas, I didn’t know what to do!”

“I would be happy to…” he began, then looked around as Virla’s voice called urgently.

“Solas! The griffon’s taking off. She’s heading for the camp!”

He didn’t pause for breath or thought, but ran towards the balcony, shifting as he leapt over the parapet. Behind him, he heard Harding scream, Cassandra gasp, felt Virla fling a barrier around him. A falcon, that would be fastest, with tapered wings, and eyesight as sharp as a dagger. Less clever than a crow, but thrice as swift.

Wind whipped past him, whistling as he dove down from the tower, barrelling faster and faster over the courtyards and the battlements, the gate, the bridge, and out along the road.

A juvenile, he thought, less experienced in flight than an adult griffon, exhausted, but reckless, and most likely hungry… she would have caught the scent of the meat they would be cooking over campfires. He could see her ahead, his Zephyr, screaming over the mountains, talons reaching out to seize. People scattered, terrified.

Ironically mis-named, for nothing about her was gentle. He cried out in joy, echoing her thrill of the chase.

Solas soared up high, gaining on his massive leonine prey. He caught the updraft, judged the timing right, and dived again, shifting back to elven as he flung his arms around the griffon’s neck, crooning her name into her ear, folding healing magic into her torn muscles and aching wings. _Food back at the castle,_ he commanded her, sitting upright. _You are frightening innocent people. That is not the role of a griffon. Fly up, Zephyr. Fly up now._

He hadn’t done that for millennia, and now the crowd below stared up from campfires. Elves that he had courted and persuaded to the Tirashan, by every means he knew: Dalish rejects, spies, Orlesian and Fereldan servants, Antivan Crows, Rivaini exiles, converts from the Qun… and far, by far too many, ex-Tevinter slaves.

They stared up at him, caught mid-flight, as he hovered high above them on the griffon.

He sat straight-backed, and offered up a tentative salute. Dressed in robes, not armour, and the griffon was a mess of filth and blood. And then he remembered posturing, and grinned. This griffon Zephyr surely was, from what he could remember – darkness in the dreams and quiet tales – a child of Garahel’s own griffon, Crookytail.

Garahel, the greatest elven hero of this aeon. Solas blinked back tears, for necessary deaths, and raised his arm.

And then, recognising Fen’Harel, they roared: stamping and cheering, bloodied but not bowed… the People finally hailed him as their own.  

  



	8. Lyrium

No sooner had Virla watched the falcon disappearing into the distance – leaving her caught between awed delight and a crazy impulse to fly out there in pursuit of him – than she heard footsteps running up the stairs.

Dagna, first, surprisingly, then, twenty seconds later, Sera. Lace Harding shrieked as the Arcanist charged across the room, and again when Sera did. Virla reluctantly abandoned thoughts of flying off, and turned to greet them with Cassandra. These were her friends, her guests in her room, she’d scarcely seen them for months.

Her choice was immediately rewarded by the sight of Dagna beaming all over her face. “Inquisitor!” she cried.

Virla knelt down on the floor and let the dwarven Arcanist enfold her in a warm and slightly sweaty hug. “Thank you,” she murmured into Dagna’s ear. Sera was scowling, unexpectedly, and flopped down on the bed.

“You did it!” cried Dagna. “Part of the Song again, forgotten not forgotten. Lyrium branches bud and bloom.”

Lace was staring at her in horror. “You understood it too?”

“Not it, her! Wait, silly me, of course you wouldn’t know. See, I knew her from Orzammar, before I left.”

“Who did you know?” asked Cassandra.

Dagna sat back on her heels, smiling round at everyone. “Valta. Shaper Valta. She was always in the Shaperate, even before she was a Shaper, looking at the books. The lyrium! My father was the smith who refined it for the Shaperate. I had to help him get it there. That’s how I knew her. I never knew what she would become!”

“What did you mean about lyrium?” asked Virla, a shiver running down her back. Before Dagna could answer, she turned to Lace, still sitting on the divan. “And what did _you_ mean, did she understand it too?”

“There was a voice, speaking, singing, while I slept,” said Lace, her face flushed. “Dwarves don’t dream, right?”

“She brought us all together, once, and then we scattered,” added Dagna. “It was Valta speaking. I know it!”

“I thought it was just you who was crazy,” said Sera, groaning and pulling a pillow over her face. Then she sat up, glaring, and tossed it away, hitting Virla’s wardrobe. “This is a thing, right? Andraste in the Void.”

Dagna nodded, practically sparkling with excitement. “The thingiest thing that ever thinged! Thung? Thang! The thingiest thing that ever thang!”

Cassandra sighed. “I truly have no idea what you are talking about. Who is Shaper Valta?”

Virla was thinking hard. If dwarves were truly reconnected to the Fade, was it the sapphire rune that grew from her hand that did it, pressed by Sandal into Valta’s chest? _Yours are footsteps that move mountains in both._

And how much could she tell them all? Solas… no, even Solas might not know how much. It was her fight.

She decided to start with the easy part, the part that Cassandra could have read in their reports had she been here. “Valta was the Shaper with us in the Deep Roads a few years back, when we responded to the call for aid from Orzammar,” she said. “I only took men, because of the darkspawn. Leliana had told me enough of what she’d seen, when she went with the Hero of Ferelden… I wasn’t prepared to risk any of you down there.”

She paused, and they nodded in sombre agreement. It was one of those things you never, ever spoke of. Being eaten alive by an Archdemon would be far preferable to being turned into a broodmother. Virla shivered, remembering the dark well of pain and regret that Solas had carried around inside him, his own Black City.

That they were going to want to clear out all the remaining darkspawn nests, just as they had tackled the red lyrium growths that infected the surface… well, it was a job that would have to be done.

“So what happened to her?” It was Harding who asked the question, who broke the silence, who perhaps had never seen those reports… who sounded like she’d dreamed last night – a shared dream, in the Titan’s Fade?

Virla remembered seeing the Shaper dead, but that had been from the Fade. She didn’t actually know, for sure.

She took a deep breath, willing herself to remember Valta as she’d been – alive, and passionate, and curious.

“We never knew,” she said. “It was Blackwall, and Cole, and Dorian, and me who went down there. Down below the Deep Roads, down to an underground sea and caverns full of lyrium, an uncharted abyss. There was a huge underground forest, a Wellspring, magically lit… and Valta stayed there. She asked me to tell Orzammar I didn’t know what had happened to her. Soon after, the cavern sealed again, and we lost the ability to contact her.”

“So you didn’t know what happened to her,” said Dagna, wrinkling her nose. “You told Orzammar the truth.”

“That’s right. King Bhelen didn’t care. We’d stopped the earthquakes. They could get back to mining lyrium.”

Dagna made a thoughtful hum in the back of her throat.

 _Nobles,_ muttered Sera from the bed, rolling on to her front and pretending to stab the other pillow.

“What did you mean about lyrium, Dagna?” asked Virla, shifting to sit cross-legged on the floor. Cassandra remained standing, determinedly avoiding looking at Sera. Lace had her eyes fixed on Dagna instead.

“Lyrium branches bud and bloom,” said Dagna again. “That’s what Valta said. You know, Inquisitor, you saw us in the Fade. Me and Valta and Sandal. Do you remember what I told you once?”

They’d been outside the City, dreaming while the mountain was exploding. “Remember what?”

“The lyrium needs to flow, but if you're part of it, it takes you with it. So you can't be part of it. It made me sad.”

Virla tried to work out a sensible question. “So are you part of it or not part of it?”

“That’s what I thought,” said Dagna, spreading her hands out wide. “We’re part of the part that’s set apart.”

“Fuck me,” said Sera, then added, glaring around the room. “Not like that. Though… that too, later. If I want. Not magey Widdle. Don’t want any magic on my tits. Not here.”

“No, not here, please,” said Virla, automatically, taking advantage of the distraction to place her hand on top of Dagna’s, confirming her dawning suspicion. “The Divine will be here. Dagna, you mean the moon, right?”

“Yes! I mean no. Is that where it is?”

Virla shrugged. “Lyrium grows in the earth, the moon is set apart from that. Dagna, you have a mage’s aura.”

Dagna grinned, and waved her other hand. Small sparks of red lightning flickered in the air. Lace winced. “I know! I can’t wait to start learning how to use it. I’m going to read all of the books in the library!”

Cassandra had put her hand to her sword, a reasonable instinct given how recently she’d been involved in close fighting against abominations, if not entirely helpful here. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Not on earth, on the moon,” said Dagna, giggling, then fell silent as Cassandra growled in exasperation.

“I think we may need to start assuming dwarves can dream, and dwarves can be mages,” said Virla, getting up to put a hand on the Seeker’s arm. Cassandra’s eyes widened, but she seemed to accept that Virla must be right. 

But there was one person here whose heart ought not to be broken, if she could help it.

Virla went over to sit on the bed, where Sera had put the other pillow over her face. “Sera, did you just learn from Dagna about this?”

“Know how I feel about mages,” said Sera sourly through the pillow.

Virla sighed, theatrically. “I’m a mage. The elfiest mage ever, from your perspective. We’re still friends.”

“Except Solas,” muttered the pillow. “Knew his head was crammed up a thousand years ago.”

“Right,” continued Virla, unable to ignore the temptation to play elfier-than-thou at the expense of her absent lover. “Let’s ignore the fact he masterminded a slave rebellion against the false elven gods.”

“Not even a thousand. Five thousand. Ten thousand,” continued Sera, voice still muffled by the pillow. “How old is he, anyway? Abelas wouldn’t say. Not sure he even knew?”

“Say ten thousand. Point is, Sera, Dagna is not an elfy elf, not even an elf. She’s a dwarf that ran away to join a Circle to learn new stuff. She lost her caste for that. She loves you. She isn’t going to lord it over you…”

“Lady it over you,” said Dagna, who had come around to sit on Sera’s other side, one hand calmly on the younger woman’s waist, fingers gently toying with the fabric.

“Ladybits over you,” said Sera, pushing the pillow up so Dagna could see her face. Virla couldn’t, but from Dagna’s tender smile, and the hand that reached out to push Sera’s hair back from her eyes… _job done._

She pushed up off from the bed, and walked over to Harding, who was resting her head in her hands.

Virla crouched down beside her, close enough to feel an aura on her too. “Lace, you know we’ll help you.”

Lace gulped and nodded. “That’s what Solas said. Inqui… Virla, can I go downstairs now? I’ll take the tray down to the kitchens. I can’t stop thinking about the way he just… went over the edge.”

“Yes, go downstairs,” said Virla. “Would you mind finding Keeper Hawen and saying I’ll be down in an hour? I’d like to take a bath before I have to move out of this room. There isn’t anywhere else the Divine can sleep.”

“Of course,” said Lace, keeping her eyes away from the windows. “I’ll talk to Desjardins, see what else is up.”

Virla thanked her, offered to help once she had spoken to Hawen, and noted that Dagna was holding Sera tightly, reassuring her in a low voice, holding out her hands to show that they weren’t sparkling any more.

 _Who next? Ah… Cassandra._ The Seeker had gone out onto the balcony facing the courtyard, breathing deeply. “I am finding this ridiculously hard to grasp,” she said, as Virla approached. “I assume it will all make sense once I have slept in a proper bed.”

Virla thought of the Silver City, and shook her head. “Not necessarily. The world has changed, Cassandra. When I dreamed last night, I dreamed there was a Silver City, not a black one. Solas… would say the same.”

Cassandra’s hands gripped the balustrade until her knuckles turned white. “The Black City… is gone?”

“I believe so,” said Virla. “I am glad the Divine is coming here. That will give us the chance to discuss it properly.”

“Dorian said that it was coming true,” said Cassandra. “Drakon’s prophecy. The Maker’s return. Andraste’s return. I… did not believe him. Or perhaps I did not want to believe him. Now I do not know what to believe.”

“Do you believe Leliana, when she says that love is the Maker’s greatest gift?”

“I… yes, I do.”

Cassandra fell silent, and Virla decided to let her stand in peace, and scanned the near horizon for a griffon.

Or a falcon, for there was no guarantee that Solas would have caught the beast. It would be strange, she thought distractedly, to be walking down to the Great Hall, not having passed through it on the way up to her room. Not as disorientating as travelling by eluvian, whether around Fen’Harel’s sanctuary or, worse, his shrine, battling deranged Qunari and the magic in her hand – but strange nonetheless.

_And now he wants to marry me. In three days’ time!_

The thought had vanished from her mind in the minutes since he had vaulted over this balustrade, but returned with doubled force to compensate for its absence. Summerday… no, that was a mad idea, entirely impossible.

Impossible. There were far too many other things to attend to. Even without the Silver City, dwarven mages, that camp of elven former slaves and assassins, the visit from the Divine, the need to talk with her Keeper, she’d only just got back to Skyhold, and there must be a hundred and one tasks that needed her attention.

It was entirely impossible, but…

“He asked me to marry him,” she said, quietly, to Cassandra, so as not to be overheard. At times the woman had felt like a surrogate mother to her, or maybe a stern elder sister. She would have made a fine Dalish warrior.

The Seeker looked down at her, her shock fading to something much like pleasure. “Solas?”

Virla gave her a crooked smile. “Yes. Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf. He has many other titles to the Dalish.”

“He earned those titles long ago,” said Cassandra, slowly. “There is no doubt he was a friend to the Inquisition, that he was your friend, my friend. There is no doubt that he loves you. Can you trust him?”

“I hope so,” said Virla, meeting her gaze, “because I said yes. If he is damned, then I am damned with him.”

“You are a good person, Virla. I feel like I do not truly know Solas any more. It is hard to comprehend what he has experienced. But if you are willing to trust him, then I will try to do so too.”

“I appreciate that, Cassandra.” They exchanged a smile, all the more valuable for being honest, and Virla found herself compelled to add, still speaking softly: “If my Keeper is agreeable, we will marry this Summerday.”

“That is certainly quick. But will your Keeper agree?”

Virla was about to explain how they had spoken with him the previous night – it was such a relief to have a friend to confide in, she wondered why she’d not dared earlier – when she heard a crash. They turned to see Lace Harding pointing with a shaking hand across the room, pointing at the closed doors leading to the other balcony. Shards of a broken bowl lay shattered on the floor, and Lace shrieked again.

“Virla! There’s something moving out there!”

Sera clutched at Dagna, and Harding backed towards the bed, as the shadowed outline moved and grew.

Virla strode across the room, suddenly recognising Hawen’s figure – he was not as tall as Solas – and grasped the handle, pulling open the door with a swift and practised movement… and an internal sigh, for fleeting peace.

Keeper Hawen stood there, one hand still raised up, the other clutching to his chest the beautiful bouquet that Solas had presented her with. She’d left it on the balcony, tucked around the corner out of sight, closed the doors so that no-one would notice it. _I should have hidden it in my closet with the elvhen armour_ , she thought.

“ _Andaran atish’an, hahren,_ ” she greeted him, watching as he took in the presence of the other four women – two dwarves, a rangy city elf and a fierce human warrior. Dagna waved. “I believe you know my friends.”

“I am Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast,” said Cassandra, rising to the occasion. Lace looked embarrassed… Sera was biting her hand. “We met at your camp in the Exal… in the Dirthavaren. Those are beautiful flowers, Keeper.”

“They are, aren’t they?” said Hawen, and Virla shivered to hear the note of anger in his voice. “Roses, and daisies, and ones that I have never seen before, in all my life, let alone within these frozen mountains.”

“It is a gift from Solas, _hahren_ ,” said Virla, cutting short the inevitable war of words. “Early this morning.”

“He did not stay here overnight?” Hawen flung the bouquet on the floor and stalked across to the bed, pointing to where the pillows had been lying. The neatly folded nightshirt lay like an emblem of deceit upon the sheets.

Virla felt like screaming: at Solas for putting it there, at Sera for moving the pillows. He must have tidied it up from the floor out of force of habit. “He did not stay here overnight,” she said instead, as calmly as she could.

Hawen rolled his eyes in disbelief, then glared at each of them. “Which of you was first here? Where is he now?”

Cassandra gestured to the north. “He has gone to catch my griffon. I was first here. Solas was… already here.”

“Fen’Harel knows what I said last night,” said Hawen, white with rage. “He promised me he’d sleep elsewhere!”

“He didn’t stay here overnight!” cried Virla, now equally incandescent. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“Because of my dreams, _da’len_ ,” spat Hawen. He shifted to a hawk, Andruil’s hawk, and soared, razored talons tearing at the air, heading to the courtyard and the north. Cassandra caught Lace Harding as she fainted.

  



	9. Zephyr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grey Warden Caronel is a character in Liane Merciel's Dragon Age novel, Last Flight.

The fur around Zephyr’s neck was dank and encrusted with blood, and dirt, and particles of things that Solas didn’t want to put a name to. Having requested and accepted a sack full of raw meat in a large metal pan, he flew away from the camp, calling down to those nearest that he would return that evening. Better to meet them on his own terms, with a strategy prepared… and on a cleaner griffon.

Flying briefly upwards, he saw a young elf darting, breathless, out towards the bridge. It was the man he’d seen with Zephyr, presumably the Grey Warden mage Caronel, the one who’d flown her here and brought Cassandra. Across his body he wore the leather satchel that Solas knew contained the grooming equipment – the array of hard and soft brushes and cloths – that he was going to need.

Regardless of his feelings regarding the Wardens, it would be wise to ensure that this one was an ally.

Solas commanded Zephyr to land near the end of the bridge, out of sight of Skyhold and the camp, in a natural hollow right beside the road. Surrounded on three sides by rock, it was protected from the wind, and shaded from the sun. There was time to dismount, to throw the ram and goat meat down on the snow for Zephyr, to fill the pan with snowmelt water, and then – for warmth as much as dramatic effect – alight again upon her back.

Back in the Tirashan, it would feel like spring. Here, in the winter chill of the Frostbacks, he was able to sit comfortably enough astride the griffon’s body, in between her wings, absorbing her warmth as she shifted, restless, on the snowy ground, enjoying her meal. There was time to take an inventory of her matted fur, her muddied feathers, her fetid beak and talons. He would need to clean his own clothes later.

He scratched her neck, ignoring the grime, and smiled to himself as she purred in sudden satisfaction.

The Warden ran around the corner, and stopped, his eyes widening in amazement, just as Solas had hoped.

Caronel ventured as close as twelve feet away, near enough for speech, but wary of the griffon’s talons. “Thank you, ser, for rescuing my griffon,” he said. “I thought that I had lost her.”

Solas sized him up. A handsome young man, about Virlath’s age, with curly honey-coloured hair and blue eyes flecked with gold. A mage. Probably the type of man, he reflected wryly, that a Keeper would desire his First to bond with, had he not been corrupted by the taint, had he been Dalish. His accent was Fereldan. No vallaslin, so from an alienage, from Denerim? Too young to have been recruited in the Fifth Blight, but scarred by it.

There was no merit in concealing his own experience, not now, not when every elf in that camp depended on it.

He discarded the temptation to immediately assume an icy haughtiness, to remind the man that the Wardens had been exiled by the very Inquisitor whose castle’s hospitality he enjoyed. That could be held in reserve.

But he need not be too friendly, not until the man had proved his trust.

“My name is Solas,” he said, inclining his head, keeping his expression sombre. He continued scratching Zephyr’s neck, enjoying the purr. “Some call me the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel. I have lived for countless ages, since the times of Arlathan… and I am familiar with this species. She would have attacked my camp, had I not prevented her.”

In some of those previous ages he would have enjoyed the way the blood drained from the young man’s face, the way he swallowed fear… but now, with wisdom painfully acquired, he could reach out, and bridge the gap.

He dismounted, landing gracefully on his feet, and walked across the snow with hand outstretched. After a beat, the Warden took it, and they stood side by side, watching the griffon gnaw upon the carcass of a goat.

“Zephyr…” said Solas, with a small smile. “A gentle breeze. Not very aptly named, is she?”

“The First Warden was keen enough to be rid of her,” said Caronel, with remarkable indiscretion. “They had to keep her chained up or she’d escape, or maul somebody. I haven’t found anywhere safe to chain her to, here.”

Solas felt a rush of pity for Zephyr, and anger at her captors. “Does Weisshaupt keep all of its griffons chained?”

Caronel frowned. “No, only Zephyr. Wait… how did you know her name? And how did you catch her?”

He’d give the man some credit for attention – from the shadows beneath his eyes, his trembling hands, he hadn’t slept in days. “I was the falcon that passed overhead. Landing upon a griffon's back is simple enough, with practice. As for Zephyr's name, I spoke with Seeker Pentaghast this morning. She informed me of it… and yours. I owe you my thanks, Grey Warden Caronel, for bringing her to me… and I would ask a favour of you.”

“A favour?”

“I believe that Zephyr does not have a rider. I am willing to purchase her.”

“She is not for sale,” said Caronel, shaking his head. “She is the property of the Grey Wardens.”

“As I say, I am willing to compensate the Wardens… and to overlook the fact that all property of theirs in Orlais is under order of confiscation. By rights, I ought to offer to pay Celene, not Weisshaupt.”

He noted Caronel’s eyes widen, and hoped he had perceived the underlying threat. Indeed, it seemed he had, for he immediately responded, with only the slightest stammer: “I c… came here with the Hero of Orlais,” he said: “by… by express permission of Divine Victoria. She countermanded the exile order herself!”

“I am glad Leliana had the forethought to consider that,” said Solas calmly. “Will Weisshaupt sell me Zephyr?”

The younger man fell silent, clearly trying to think it through. “The Wardens do not know that I am here,” he admitted, eventually. “Are you by any chance… familiar with the Champion of Kirkwall, Serah Hawke?”

Solas hid a smile. “I have had the pleasure of his company. Indeed, I fought beside the man at Adamant.”

“Then you did a great service to the Wardens, ser, and I am grateful for it,” said Caronel, with a stiff politeness that Solas found almost painfully familiar from his own past. “Warden Clarel was most gravely led astray.”

“Indeed,” said Solas, not thinking it politic to dwell on past mistakes. “You mentioned Hawke?”

“Three years ago he brought the news to Weisshaupt of the troubles in Orlais, riding with our exiled brethren. It was just after we had found the griffon chicks. I don’t know if you are aware of Zephyr’s parentage?”

Solas indicated that he would be interested to hear the story, first suggesting that it might be prudent for him to start the task of grooming Zephyr’s fur, while she was engaged in feeding. Caronel agreed to this, and helped him melt more snow to rinse the cloths in, while he started with a brush upon her neck. The griffon was entirely docile to his touch, but hissed whenever the Warden ventured near, admirably assisting in his negotiations.

It seemed that Hawke had stolen Zephyr, or at the very least, had used her to escape a political noose that the First Warden had threatened to hang around his neck. Hawke was skilled in diplomacy, but he had been a convenient scapegoat for the events in Orlais, the losses of Warden Alistair of Ferelden, Warden Clarel of Orlais, and countless other brethren. Caronel had gone after him, flying on his own griffon, Dorfassan.

It further seemed that Caronel had not pursued him out of loyalty to orders, but rather a disloyalty to them. He had grown fond of Hawke. When the rock wraiths had begun to swarm last month, and Varric had requested them to come to the aid of Kirkwall, he had accompanied him there, helping bring in supplies – and rescuing those left vulnerable in nearby villages.

“So Zephyr let Hawke fly her out from Weisshaupt?” asked Solas, wondering if he would need to negotiate with the Champion as well. He was kneeling by her front left foot, polishing each talon until it shone.

Caronel rinsed out a soiled cloth, and melted more snow in the pan, to provide them with more clean, warm water. “Yes, and in the rescue missions, but once the rock men crumbled, she wanted to come south.”

“And your own griffon was injured?”

“Yes,” said Caronel, with a sigh. “Dorfassan sprained a tendon. Hawke told me to come on Zephyr, as Varric needed him to stay. It was important, he said, that Cassandra came here, to help the Divine deal with the…”

“To deal with the elves?” asked Solas, standing up to collect the fresh pan of water, speaking into the suddenly dense silence as the Warden trailed off. “My elves, the elven army who had saved the world?”

He looked down at Caronel, holding out the heavy pan, and saw the flicker of terror in his eyes. “Nobody knew where you were, ser, or the Inquisitor! They didn’t confide much in me, but I knew that much.”

Lifting the pan out of the man’s arms, Solas sighed. “Don’t be a fool, Caronel. If I had intended to hurt you now I should have done so already. What did you hear about the Inquisitor?”

“I know she is an elf, ser, a Dalish – as fierce and savage as all her kind. I know she can cure people with a touch of her hand, the same hand that killed the evil magister Corypheus who breached the Veil. They say she is more beautiful than Empress Celene, more cunning than the Archon. I know that she has instructed the Divine to allow elves to serve in the Chantry, to reinstate the Canticle of Shartan. I know… that Hawke admired her.”

He could hardly blame Caronel for not considering himself to be of the same people as the Dalish, and as far as gushing tributes went, it was not bad. The man seemed half in love with her story already, and he was no longer surprised that he had taken the opportunity to bring Cassandra here, to see this fortress for himself.

“Her name is Virlath Al’var Lavellan,” said Solas, scrubbing mud away assiduously from Zephyr’s left hind leg, “and I expect she will be delighted to meet you.”

Caronel looked shocked, and then relieved. “She… the Inquisitor… is here, then?”

“Seeker Pentaghast spoke with us both this morning. We were watching from the tower when Zephyr escaped.”

“And you were there?” asked Caronel, sounding incredulous. “You… flew down from the tower as a falcon?”

Solas paused for a moment in his task, and looked directly at him, not bothering to hide his amusement. “I could hardly let her escape and kill my people, could I?”

“Zephyr would not have done that!” said Caronel, and stepped back as the griffon, hearing her name, trained a baleful eye on him. “She is just… misunderstood.”

“She was starving, Caronel. You should have abandoned your pride, and gone to the kitchens.”

“I… I… you are right. And, for what it is worth, I do not own her any more than Hawke did. If you will indeed compensate the Wardens, I have no objection. She seems to have taken to you as Dorfassan took to me.”

Zephyr, clearly understanding enough of the sense of their conversation, purred loudly in response. Solas rinsed the cloth in the pan and went up to her head, watching as she bowed it down, so that she could look him in the eyes. _You are mine now,_ he thought, gently cleaning her face, _just as I am yours. Do not make me regret it._

Caronel had looked away – perhaps out of politeness, perhaps missing his own bond with Dorfassan – and so neither of them spotted the hawk that plunged down from the skies, until it had become a man.

Zephyr hissed, and Solas span around, feeling the shifting in the Veil, and sensing who it was before he saw.

“Keeper Hawen…” he began, then felt the rage pouring off the man like lava. Deliberately, he made his own expression cold. For a second his heart stopped, fearing for Virla. But surely he’d have known, if she were hurt?

Caronel had stepped forward, but hesitated, seeing the old Dalish man with fire at his fingertips.

Hawen seemed to realise, seconds too late, that this was a battle he could never win, and called the fire back into his hands. “Keepers,” he said bitterly, “are meant… to protect their people… from the Dread Wolf.”

“Your people are in no danger from me,” said Solas. “As I said, the war is over. I now intend to live a quiet life.”

Hawen shook his head, still breathing harshly. “You promised me… you would not… sleep with her last night!”

“And I did not,” said Solas, forcing himself to remain calm. Behind him, Zephyr snarled. “I slept where I said I would, in a room off the lower courtyard.” Better not to mention the eluvian, not in front of Caronel.

The man was calming down, but not by much. “Your nightshirt was in her room!” he said, still glaring.

This was pure farce, but the man was Virla’s father, and Fen’Harel could not blame him for his obvious concern for her. And while it was true that he had not slept there then, later he had been so close…

“And what did your First say,” he said eventually, “when you asked her if she had lain with the Dread Wolf?”

“She said you had not stayed there overnight,” said Hawen, his cheeks pink. “She… was furious with me.”

“Let me appeal to your sense of reason, Keeper. Last night, you saw a nightshirt on the floor of her room, and will recall I did not take it with me when we left. You had heard my reluctance to stay, my wish she should rest.”

“I saw you in her room, half-naked!”

“She had sought to tempt me to stay, and unclasping my pauldrons and chestpiece was part of this. I was glad when you arrived, for it meant I did not have to rebuff her advances directly. She is in love with me,” added Solas, as gently as he could. “Why would a young woman not hide such a trophy, folded underneath her pillow?”

“It… was not just the nightshirt,” admitted Hawen, and cast a sudden, sharp look at Caronel. “Who is this man?”

“I am a Gr… griffon helper,” said Caronel, clearly wishing himself out of earshot. “I am helping with the griffon.”

“You found the bouquet I had taken her,” said Solas, pressing his advantage. “I had thought on your suggestion, and had gone to visit her this morning. I wished to confirm that she was willing to consent to marry me, before we spoke with you this morning for your blessing. I would not wish to bond with her against her will.”

Hawen had listened closely to his words, and at this his rage subsided further. “You sought her consent?”

This was the moment for icy haughtiness. “You compel me to speak plainly, Keeper. I trust that neither you, nor Caronel here, shall have cause to repeat my words. I have never lain with your First under false pretences. Put crudely, there is no possibility that she is carrying my child, and such insinuations do Clan Al’var no credit.”

Hawen seemed unsure whether to apologise or rejoice, and stammered: “But… you do wish to marry her?”

“I do,” said Solas. “Were she here with me, she would also ask for your approval. And I should consider it an honour, for her sake, if you were to conduct the ceremony. I understand that it is customary in Dalish traditions, and I wish her to be entirely comfortable. Naturally, I am willing to overlook your incivility in doubting that I keep my word. I believe that Summerday remains an auspicious day for such occasions?”

“This Summerday? But that is… soon!” Hawen seemed to recollect his manners, that he was speaking to a god… if gods were covered in mud, and accompanied by blood-spattered griffons. The Keeper’s eyes narrowed, as if seeking some solace for his pride. “Summerday. Very well. You will not… sleep with her, before then?”

He took a breath, remembering Virla’s voice and eyes – her _please, vhenan_ – and Sera’s bet. _Three days. I can manage three days._ Slowly, he nodded. “I give you my word. I will not lay with Virlath before the ceremony.”

“Then I am satisfied,” said Hawen. “I give my consent. You will allow a Keeper his concern for his clan.”

“Your concerns are misplaced, but understandable,” said Solas, allowing his frostiness to fade away. To the side, he saw Caronel relax. “Once I have attended to this griffon, I should be pleased to wait upon you further.”

Hawen nodded, as if griffons were entirely part of normal life and not a relic of a bygone age… but then, the Dalish had always lived in the past. With a curt nod to them both, he shifted back into a hawk, and flew away.

Caronel said slowly, as they watched the bird glide up: “Virlath… the girl you spoke of… _she_ is the Inquisitor?”

Solas let his eyes glow slightly. “If you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, Grey Warden, you will regret it.”

The Warden backed away. “I would not dare! I will… fetch more meat for Zephyr from the kitchens.”

“Very well,” said Fen’Harel, and waited until the man had turned the corner. Then he laid his head against the griffon’s flank, still damp from his attempts to clean it, and stifled hysterical laughter in the fur.

  



	10. Glistening

Virla had asked Cassandra to stay with her, trusting the Seeker most of all of her friends to prevent her from doing something ill-advised, like flying out of the window after Hawen. Lace had come around quickly enough, doubly embarrassed. Dagna and Sera had agreed to take Lace downstairs, somewhere closer to the ground.

Now she was sitting on the bed, watching Cassandra close the balcony doors, trying to control her breathing.

“Thank you,” she said. “Presumably whichever one doesn’t kill the other will come back here at some point.”

“Perhaps,” said Cassandra, slowly, as if she was only just coming to this conclusion, “…perhaps I should not have said that Solas was here when I arrived.”

Virla silently agreed, but said: “Hawen had already made his mind up. I wonder what he had seen in his dreams.”

“Do you really think they’ll fight?”

“No, of course I don’t,” said Virla, not managing this time to prevent herself from snapping. “Solas will retreat behind a mask, that’s all. He won’t allow himself to be provoked. It will be a war of words, not magic.”

Cassandra still looked worried. “But what if your Keeper attacked him first?”

“Without even letting Solas explain himself? We’re not barbarians, Cassandra.”

“But Solas turned the Viddasala into stone, while walking, when he had his back to her. She was about to throw a spear at him. You told me that. You warned me he was dangerous! A war against immortal mage-kings…”

Virla sighed. She really didn’t want to re-live those painful memories.

Instead she reasoned, saying brusquely: “A completely different situation. All of us – not just us mages, all of us who fight – are dangerous, but we’re not indiscriminate. The Qunari weren’t just trying to kill him, they were trying to start a war upon the South. He’s not about to petrify my Keeper, Cass. Even if he is Fen’Harel.”

Cassandra shrugged, and carried the desk chair over to the bed, settling herself into it with a scrape of metal armour against the wood. “I hope that you are right,” she said, closing her eyes briefly.

“I wonder if I have time for a bath,” said Virla, also hoping she was right. “If you stayed here, then you could call out if somebody else came here, and give me time to get dressed. I’ll ward the balcony doors, but I’ll not ward the door to the stairs, in case you need to leave. Desjardins replaced my old tub in the side room there: there’s an azure granite bath, a gift from the people of Sahrnia. It doesn’t crack when I fill it with ice. I could do you some fresh water after, if you want. Nice clean Fade-ice, boiled just how you like...”

Her friend was frowning at something, and she stopped abruptly, realising how exhausted Cassandra looked.

“I’m trying to distract myself,” she explained, looking up at the bed hangings to avoid looking at the balcony doors again. “I’m talking so I don’t think about it. Of course I’m worried about Solas and Keeper Hawen. I’m worried about everything. I… was alone with him for so long, it’s hard to realise everything’s all right. It’s probably not all right, but then whenever is everything all right? Are you all right?”

The Seeker nodded wearily. “Dwarves can dream, Fen’Harel’s no longer a threat, the rock wraiths are gone, and you tell me the Black City’s gone. Why does everything happen when you’re around?”

“You’re the ones who called me the Herald of Andraste,” said Virla, trying to make light of it.

“If you want a bath, Inquisitor,” said Cassandra, stressing the honorific, “take a bath. If there is a crisis it will come here soon enough. I will remain here, as you suggested.”

“Wasn’t Faustine II ready to call this age the Sun Age, but changed it to the Dragon Age – violence and upheaval? Rather than a celebration of the Orlesian Empire’s glory… it must have heartened the Fereldan rebels. I know I read that somewhere…” continued Virla, leaping to her feet. She strolled across, and began to scan the bookshelves. “Right, here it is. Genitivi, _The Studious Theologian._ Yes, yes… I’ll read it in the bath, save time.”

****

It hadn’t taken him much longer to finish grooming Zephyr, and she’d gobbled up the extra helpings of meat that Caronel had brought. It would do her good, thought Solas, to fly up in the sunshine, where the breeze would dry her fur and lighten her spirits. It would do him good as well, he thought, to see this place in sunlight.

And so he found himself on Zephyr’s back again, soaring through the air: a lord of all he surveyed. This castle was hers, and she was his, and all the people here were his or hers… or most of them, at least.

It was a start. Not for his own glorification, of course, nor for hers, but to provide that most necessary of places: a sanctuary. A sanctuary nestled in between Ferelden and Orlais; a small piece of the lands Andraste once gave to the elvhen. A place where elven refugees might run… and others, who sought refuge. He was not going to make that mistake again, of considering people less because they were not mages, because he could not understand their motives, because they had not been brought up according to the principles of Elvhenan.

Though some things mattered. Freedom, wisdom, choice.

Skyhold had been a pilgrimage before, following the destruction of Haven, and he could foresee that it might turn that way again. How to defeat the Qun: _that_ was the question. Little as he liked Tevinter, the way that Par Vollen imprisoned its own mages, the way they tortured those who questioned… he liked that even less. The people of his dark twin, abandoned to their misery. The Qun was the problem, not the Qunari themselves.

Solas sighed. _Pride,_ he told himself, _you are not the answer to every problem. Focus on what matters now._

The sky above was blue, the Breach a glowing scar, the Veil was thin; yet his eyes were turned to see what lay below. The jagged Frostbacks peaks; the firs that grew in ever sparser clumps; the camp of elves, his elves; the long stone bridge; the crenellated battlements and turrets; the Great Hall and the curve of the rotunda.

And from his vantage point on Zephyr’s back, a myriad of interactions on the ground.

There were the aravels, with Hawen sitting on the steps, soaking up the sun and talking with… Emalien, was that her name? She looked heavily pregnant: one child at least, for Hawen’s clutch. Her brother Valorin had been a mage – he remembered the day they’d found him: the charred corpse; talisman; bloodstained journal. Sixteen years of age, he’d wanted to be Hawen’s First, and when he’d been passed over for Taven, the silly child had turned to blood magic. Not that Virla had ever told the clan that… she’d said something about teenagers being stupid.

Ironic, given she was only nineteen when she’d been branded with his magic. She was the First that Clan Al’var deserved, not either Valorin or Taven. And she must have had her skills at handling people from her mother, or been taught them by her Keeper back in Clan Lavellan, for she surely didn’t get them from her father.

His idealism and his love of words though… _the fragile beauty of things that journey to places where they are strangers_ … That was a phrase of Hawen himself, in a letter Virla showed him about the halla gifted to Red Crossing. These aravels were strangers here, within this fortress, but all the more beautiful for it. But then, he was of a mind to see poetry in everything today, and even Hawen’s bewildered hostility was precious.

Freedom, wisdom, choice… and love, and beauty.

There were herbs in the Skyhold courtyard, where Giselle and Morrigan had loved to spend their days, and he had perforce avoided. He might make it his own place now, and train some vines up around the pillars.

Soldiers walked the battlements, still garbed in Inquisition gear: familiar and sturdy, well trained by Cullen. One of them looked up at him, confused; he gave the man a cheerful wave, amused that it confused him further.

His eyes traced the rotunda wall, imagining how the fresco sat within it, remembering his painting and the laying of the runes from underneath, an echo of his memories and longings, encrypted and imprinted in Dagna’s mind.

Dagna herself was coming out of the Great Hall, down the stairs with Sera and Lace Harding. He ought to talk with Dagna, but first… he had to go back up and tell her. Virlath might be Hawen’s First, but she was his as well.

She’d always be his first, from now on. His mistress, lover, soon to be his… wife. The word felt strange.

_It’s new, and nothing much is new to you, old wolf. Enjoy it while it lasts!_

The balconies looked barely large enough to land on, so he urged Zephyr down on to the roof, where Tarasyl’an Te’las met the sky, persuading her to balance at the pinnacle, the crossroads where the ridges met. He promised her he would be back to fly again, that this time she’d have two of them to carry – if the fates were kind.

It was easy enough to shift into a raven, and Zephyr snorted with surprise, to feel the weight fly off her back.

Solas landed on the balcony, shifting back even before his feet were fully on the ground – _fenedhis_ , it was _good_ to be able to fly around here freely, without arousing suspicion, or at least not caring if he did. He probably shouldn’t dare a wolf, but birds… nobody feared a crow, not yet. Maybe in Tevinter it was different.

He didn’t even think to knock upon the door, so keenly did he feel the need to tell Virlath the news. She’d love to ride upon a griffon. She’d laid a ward, but it was trivial to slip through it and replace it with one of his own. Stepping in, he noted that the room seemed empty. It smelled of her: of woodsmoke and the fragrances she wore. Soon he would lie here with her, underneath its vaulted ceiling, the fresco with its mountains, sun and sword; the stone owls stretching out their wings to hunt. It was hard not to feel something of a predator himself, he’d trained himself so long to see this room as something sacred: eight glass windows he must never breach.

A sudden snore from the bed caught his attention – its curtains drawn on this side from the bright, mid-morning light. Was she in the Fade again, so soon?

He tiptoed carefully along the maroon rug, its tread muffling his footsteps, and twitched the curtains aside.

Stifling a chuckle, realised why he’d thought the snore had not sounded quite as he’d expected – it was Cassandra who lay there, her head pillowed on her metal arm, not his… soon-to-be… wife, Virlath.

“Cassandra?” called a voice from the side room on the far side of the bed. _Ah, there she was._

Not wishing to startle the Seeker as she slept, he crept across, soft-footed, and took a peep inside.

The sight that greeted him was sweeter than his wildest dreams of her: he hadn’t realised this was where she bathed. He should have realised that, he thought a moment later, but by then she had seen him, and by the time he whipped his head back from around the door, dizzy with shock, it was by far too late.

The image was enamelled on his mind: the way her damp hair clung around her shoulders, curling dark red waves of it; the scent of rose oil wafting from the steaming water; the leather-bound book in her hands, shielding her naked breasts; the candlelit glow of her skin, ivory in a hemisphere of azure; the way one foot was resting on her knee, the other knee falling away to rest upon the granite ledge; the way that _that_ displayed her edhas most provocatively towards him.

And all the more provocative, for being entirely unintended.

He couldn’t breathe, for all the memories it caused to flood back: of how her body felt and how she’d sounded when he’d pleasured her. _Three days,_ he thought, with a despairing glance at Cassandra on the bed. _Three days._

“Solas,” she called. “Solas, is Cassandra out there?”

He tried desperately to compose himself. “Yes, _vhenan. Ir abelas…_ Cassandra is asleep. I did not realise…”

“What if Hawen comes and finds you here? He is looking for you.” She had switched to elven, her voice lilting and... apprehensive, unaware that everything was settled already.

“He already found me,” said Solas, trying not to remember how his thumbs had caressed her body in the Fade last night; how her mouth had felt around him, in Aratishan, sweet and warm, her tongue a blessed mercy. “We spoke. All… is well.”

“Why don’t you come in here and tell me? Then you’re less likely to wake Cassandra.”

His cheeks were red hot, and his edhis was throbbing, painfully aroused. “Are you… decent?”

The snort of laughter that came through the door did nothing for his discomfort.  

“Please, _vhenan._ I would be extremely grateful if you could… wear something. It is not seemly…”

There was another snort, as if she were trying not to giggle, but a few seconds later the door opened, taking him by surprise as he had not had the foresight to move further away from it. A hand grabbed him round the wrist, and pulled him into the bathing room. Virla closed the door, then pushed him up against it, kissing him, hard. Her skin was wet.

Her hands were on his shoulders, behind his ears, her mouth the sweetest of tortures. When she at last pulled back, leaving them both gasping, his eyes were drawn to the deep cleft of creamy skin between her breasts, created by the thin white cotton towel she’d wrapped herself in. Hastily he raised his gaze to hers, then flushed even harder at the fascination with which she was taking in his reaction.

“I should have done this before,” she said, biting her lip and pressing her body up against his erection.

“Deliberately tempt me?” he asked. He had to retain some semblance of control… he had to.

The tips of her ears were pink. “Haven’t you heard that every Dalish girl secretly wants to fuck the Dread Wolf?”

It was a quote from the runes he’d left, the part that hadn’t been a part of him, but now was reunited. He groaned at his own arrogance. “ _Vhenan…_ I can’t. I promised Hawen I wouldn’t lay with you until the ceremony.”

She stepped back, suddenly abandoning the role of temptress, sinking back into the part he was familiar with: the quiet maid, who blushed at the thought of sex. It made him burn with desire to see how easily she slid between the roles, to imagine the dances she’d lead him in the Fade, unshackled by convention or tradition.

“Then… he agreed?” she asked, looking up at him from underneath her lashes. He found that he was scarcely listening. The towel only barely reached her thighs, her body was warm and wet and soft, and smelled of roses; and the temptation to lift her up against the door and thrust into her gracelessly… it was almost unbearable.

He nodded, digging his fingernails into his hands. “Summerday. Once you’re dressed, we should both talk with him. I imagine that there are traditions that need to be negotiated, and you will want to talk with Emalien.”

“Emalien?”

“She is pregnant. Heavily so, probably near her birthing time.”

A smile lit her face. “I don’t know if you realise how much this means to me, _‘ma lath,_ that you trouble to remember her name. I didn’t think you had paid attention to the clan when we were with them in the Dirth.”

“Everything that matters to you… matters to me, _vhenan._ The People need us… and we need them.”

A drop of water fell between her breasts, pulled towards the Earth… and he remembered Zephyr, overhead. He’d meant to take her up – but if she were behind him, clinging, soft breasts against his back; or the other way, his edhis against her rear, and he unable to slake his thirst for her, for three more days – no, he couldn’t do it.

Instead, he bowed. “Perhaps it is better if Cassandra does not see me here. I would not want Hawen to think that I was remiss in keeping my promises. You should know that I have taken ownership of Zephyr.”

“The griffon?”

“She is standing on the roof. I… yes, I should be going. It would not be helpful if your Keeper came up now.”

“Was that why the roof beams were creaking? I could hear them, but I didn’t think that would be what it was.”

“It is not to be expected that you would, _vhenan._ I hope you do not mind.”

Virla laughed. “Of course not! A griffon… well, I am sure I will see more of her in the days to come. There are some people I should dearly like to attend, if we are truly to be bonded in three days. I could come with…”

“It is better that I collect them alone,” he said hastily. “The griffon will fly faster and further with but a single passenger. There will be time enough afterwards, to take you up into the clouds.”

“I look forward to it,” she said, her expression darkening, her voice sultry. A promise of bidden delights, and biting, sucking, licking, gasping… it was as much as he could do to smile weakly, shift, and fly fast from the room.

  



	11. Ribbons

While not as busy as it had been at the height of the Inquisition’s efforts against Corypheus, the Great Hall was far from empty. Virla had dried and dressed herself, hiding her inner tumult behind an Inquisitorial mask, and her body once more within the crimson uniform, before she’d awakened Cassandra. She would have to play so many parts today, that it would be best to present herself as the Inquisitor: a soldier, rather than an elf or mage.

Or raven, or dragon. There was no need to terrify the workers cleaning the Hall. They looked up as she passed by, not with surprise – so word had already got out, then – but with a suspicious curiosity that faded into relief as they saw Cassandra with her. She and the Seeker greeted each by name: all those serving here had been with them since Haven, or had arrived soon after. They’d seen the Breach; they knew what she’d done. The Seeker was no mage, no elf; she was devout; she always told the truth: if she thought all was well, then so it must be.

Remembering the stern old wolf who had told her to focus only on what truly mattered, she was trying not to dwell on any of the morning’s events. Not her disastrous self-pleasuring; not Solas’ unexpected proposal; not Hawen’s anger. Certainly not the fragility of her lover’s command of himself, when faced with unbared breasts and the prospect of setting aside a ten thousand year-old rule of chastity. The latter was a daunting thought, but not one that she could afford to dwell on. There would be time enough to think about immortality.

Instead, while Cassandra reassured the people here, she thought about the world, and being Dalish.

The scattered Dalish clans chose different paths, but there were threads in common, pulling to the centre of the web. Legends of the Creators and the vallaslin; the Arlathvhen and the systems of Keepers; the halla and the aravels; crafting with ironbark; but above all, the hope that some day there might be a home, a new Arlathan.

Most clans were prepared to encompass city elves within that home; most had long accepted refugees from city alienages. Some went further: at her previous Arlathvhen, hahren Paivel Sabrae had taught the children that they might learn from flat ears how to live in harmony with shemlen, in return for teaching them their history.

She’d been nine then, only peripherally aware of the Fifth Blight in Ferelden; but the lesson must have stuck.

Virla looked around and smiled. Here were elves and humans and dwarva working together, talking freely about their dreams and hopes. Hawen himself had said that she might be the bridge, and had supported her by bringing their clan to Skyhold. Clan Lavellan built bridges in Wycome, Varric in Kirkwall, and with Leliana’s help, Ferelden and Orlais, Antiva and Nevarra, transforming the Chantry as swiftly as they dared. If the lot of Andrastian elves might be improved, and the Dalish could learn to appreciate Andraste as Ameridan had, well…

This was what she’d spent her days on, before the Exalted Council, burying her heartbreak in work, before Fen’Harel had taken her arm and all security away. _A few years of relative peace,_ he’d said, while the Qun waged war on Tevinter. Had the rock wraiths been the shattering of the world the Viddasala feared? She needed to get through an eluvian to Kirkwall, or her hands on a sending crystal, or both. She needed to talk to Dorian, and…

The cry echoed from the door of the Great Hall, to where they stood with Gatsi by Varric’s fireplace – she’d always think of it as that, just as the balcony above belonged to Vivienne; the tavern to Bull and Krem and Sera.

“Virla!” said Emalien, again, as they clasped each other’s hands, and Virla looked down at her swollen belly – and her own obviously flat one – with a smile. Solas had been right, Ema must be near her birthing date.

“ _Aneth ara, lethallin_ ,” she said. “I have been gone a long time. How have you been? And Ithiren?”

Emalien’s gaze flickered down as she let her hands fall, looking briefly disappointed. “From the rumours we heard, I had wondered if you were with child yourself. Is he truly Fen’Harel, the man who travelled with you?”

Virla nodded, but added, carefully: “He is not as you might imagine Fen’Harel to be. He is polite, and courteous.”

“So the Keeper said!” Emalien spoke rapidly in the broad southern Dalish accent she shared with Hawen and the rest of Clan Al’var. “When Loranil first spoke of ancient elves, still living in the Arbor Wilds, he said that they were taller, but just as alive and fierce as we were. Mythal’s mercy, I still cannot believe that we met Fen’Harel!”

Cassandra had finished her conversation with Gatsi, who seemed more fascinated than appalled by her descriptions of the lyrium rock wraiths. She walked across to them, and inclined her head to Emalien in greeting.

“It was not what any of us expected,” she said, in her precise way, placing each word like a swordthrust, “to find that we had fought alongside – and had counted as a friend – an ancient elven god.”

“Ought we to honour him as such?” asked Emalien, frowning and putting her hands to the small of her back. “The Keeper told us he believes Fen’Harel has been on the side of the Creators all along. He says that their trust in him as kin was not misplaced. Master Taniel has already started carving a new statue. It will be like the ones we saw within the Dirth… the old one was so worn from arrow practice, we thought it best to hide it.”

Virla honestly wasn’t sure what Solas would make of this. His outward response would most likely be polite, whatever his inner feelings were. She tried to do the same. “I am glad you seek to make him welcome.”

“I remember him sitting in the Temple of Mythal,” said Cassandra, “staring at the mosaics. He seemed lost in thought, as if our entire enterprise were of no import compared to the weight of history.”

_If I were walking June’s path, would this be a wedding chamber? Sylaise as bride… anything is possible…_

“Come into the rotunda,” said Virla on impulse. “For a few minutes, and then I ought to find the Keeper.”

Emalien looked as if she might refuse, but then shrugged and walked beside her. “I did not like to come in here,” she said, with an apologetic laugh, explaining her hesitation. “The books remind me that I cannot read.”

And Ema’s father had _been_ the Keeper, her brother a mage… but neither they nor Hawen had taught her.

“We are only here to look at the fresco,” said Virla. She pushed open the door into – what had been, and yes, still was – her place of work; her office, as Varric called it. Her hearth: gentle arts and song, and June god of crafts… and all elves learning to read, and write... had she been wrong, to think the Solas of the fresco runes had meant it literally, that he _was_ June, and she his bride Sylaise? Time to ask him later what he’d meant. For now…

Virla pulled the chair away from her desk, and turned it around to face the final _sa’vunin_. Urging Ema to sit down, she pointed to the final panel of the fresco: the sketch of the wolf slaying the dragon with a sword.

“When I first saw this,” she said to them both, “I couldn’t understand its message. The fresco tells the story of the Inquisition, and this ought to signify the killing of Corypheus. The dragon represents Tevinter, the sword is the Inquisitor… but who was the wolf? But Solas was gone by then – his real name is Solas, Ema – I couldn’t ask.”

Emalien’s eyes widened. “I remember he wore a wolf jaw round his neck, like a talisman. I wondered why.”

“I asked him that once,” said Cassandra, to Virla’s surprise. The Seeker glared up at the wolf, as if daring it to bite out of the panel. “He told me it was to remind him to be practical… and wary. I saw he no longer wears it.”

“The Keeper says the War is over,” said Emalien. “Maybe he no longer needs to keep his vigil over the prisons.”

“I expect the Qunari will return to war soon enough,” said Cassandra. “Tevinter is weaker than ever.”

Emalien shook her head, then winced as if the babe had kicked her. “Not the Qunari war, the Great War! Between our Creators and the Forgotten Ones, the gods of good and evil. Fen’Harel brokered the truce.”

“There must be more to it than our legends tell us,” said Virla, before Cassandra could cut in, “and perhaps we might learn more of our true history, if we can persuade Solas to tell us. I ought to speak to the Keeper.”

Ema wrinkled her nose, frowning slightly. “Virla… tell me if I should not ask, but when I spoke to the Keeper just now, he had an old scroll in his hand, tied with a green ribbon. I know it holds the rules for bonding, because that is the one that Keeper Hawen used, when Ithiren and I were bonded. We were not mages, so it was easier.”

“Why would it have been harder for mages?” asked Cassandra, with a sideways glance at her. “In Circles, mages could not marry, but in Dalish clans, there would be no need for such restrictions.”

“From what Valorin once told me, the rules are very complicated,” said Emalien. “Virla, you must know them.”

She racked her memory, but couldn’t remember anything specific. “No, Ema, I don’t think either my old Keeper or Keeper Hawen has ever spoken to me about that. I assume Keepers can’t bond with other Keepers, at least.”

Cassandra looked puzzled, as if she was trying to make sense of a complicated report in her mind. “Virla, if Emalien spoke to the Keeper just now, he cannot be still trying to find Solas. You should speak to him.”

Virla nodded, distracted by the thought of unknown rules, and strode off quickly, leaving Cassandra to help Emalien more slowly down the steps. Best not to think about those nine eggs in the Fade, or Mythal’s soul.

****

It was with some trepidation that she ascended the steps of the aravel, remembering how furious her Keeper had been when he’d tossed that beautiful bouquet on the floor. It was sitting in a vase now, on her desk.

She pulled aside the coarse red cloth, and managed not to gasp in shock at the simple domestic scene that met her eyes. Keeper Hawen and Solas were already there, sharing an early lunch of bread and dandelion wine, their skin illuminated pink by the light that filtered through the canvas. The scroll that Emalien had mentioned lay open beside her Keeper, its green ribbon folded neatly by it.

“Sit down, _da’len_ ,” said Hawen, patting the cushion beside him and passing her a wooden beaker of wine.

“ _Tel’enfenim,_ ” said Solas, with that faint smile she’d learned to recognise as amusement. “The Keeper spoke with me and I assured him that I had done you no wrong. He has consented to our bonding. On Summerday.”

Virla sat down on the cushion, and managed to assume an appropriate expression. “ _Ma serannas,_ Keeper, I am grateful. I… Keeper Deshanna never taught me the rules for mage bonding. I only know what I have seen.”

“The matter is simple,” said Hawen, nodding placidly at her. “Fen’Harel becomes a member of our clan. Since he is a mage, he will become my Second. Where a Keeper’s First and Second are not related by any ties of blood closer than first cousin, only the Keeper’s permission is required. Thus we need not trouble the Arlathvhen.”

Solas had been listening closely, his elbows resting lightly on his crossed knees, his hands around his empty beaker. “I can guarantee she is not related to me. What if I did not become a member of your clan?”

“Then it would not be solely my decision, _mirthadra Fen’Harel_. It would not be clear that You were Dalish.”

Virla paused with her drink halfway to her mouth. “Keeper, you cannot mean that Fen’Harel is _not_ Dalish?”

“He has a point,” said Solas lightly. “I was born well before the Kingdom of the Dales was established.”

She gulped down wine, and found it fuelled rather than suppressed her rage. “But you are elvhen! This is not the time to be precise about the Rules. It is ridiculous, that you should be a Second in Clan Al’var.”

“On the contrary, _vhenan_ , I am greatly honoured by your Keeper’s offer. To work out even one solution to our problem is no little feat. Though I would like some time to decide whether it is the wisest course of action.”

“Being in love is not a problem,” muttered Virla, then clamped her mouth tight shut. _Be practical, Virlath!_

“It is not a solution either,” said Solas repressively, but his eyes softened as he picked up the scroll, scanning it quickly. “This scroll we were discussing, Keeper, this section in particular – is Virlath aware of its content?”

Hawen shook his head, and turned to her. “There are only two situations where a clan’s First may make a bond with another mage. One is as I described before, though sometimes a Second may be assigned to a clan at the Arlathvhen with the intent that the bonding would follow after. The other is with another clan’s Keeper, where the Arlathvhen judge that the second clan has more need for the First than their original clan.”

“If I were in truth a Dalish Keeper, with the elves I protect my clan, we should need to prove to the Arlathvhen that I was in more need of you than Clan Al’var,” explained Solas. “Or rather, that my clan was in more need.”

Virla frowned. “I see. So, Keeper, this is why you said we would need to find you a new First.”

Solas looked approving, but Hawen sighed, and reached out for her hand. “It is perhaps selfish of me.”

“Selfish? To not wish to train up another First?” Virla felt sad: none of this was Hawen’s fault. “I know that I have not been around much, but at least you know that I am capable to take care of our clan, should anything…”

She trailed off, squeezing his hand gently, and Solas spoke into the silence, before it became oppressive. “As I indicated before, I would wish to think on this further. In ancient Arlathan there were similar rules of status and rank which governed bonding. Though you have omitted one type mentioned in this scroll.”

Hawen’s eyes narrowed. “That type is not relevant to this discussion.”

“Ah yes, I see that now,” said Solas, handing the scroll back into Hawen’s outstretched hand. “A temporary bond between Firsts of different clans, in order to produce a child. The bond lasts only during the Arlathvhen.”

Virla wondered why he’d taken the trouble to point this out. “I agree, that isn’t relevant. The next Arlathvhen isn’t due for another six years at least – seven if it’s ten since the last one. I would be nearly thirty!”

“That is hardly old, _vhenan,_ ” murmured Solas, making Hawen chuckle.

“You know what I mean,” said Virla, frustrated to be wrongfooted. _You can hardly wait three days, old wolf._

The Keeper made a sign for her to be quiet, perhaps surprised at how easy it might be to converse with a god. He seemed to forget it, thought Virla, then all at once remember, startling himself.

“ _’Ma Virlath_ ,” said Solas, the words an obvious caress, “I should like today to think about your Keeper’s offer. If I accept it, we shall wed on Summerday, as part of Clan Al’var.”

She nodded, as did Hawen. It was a strange solution, but if it was the easiest, maybe it was… practical?

Solas’ expression grew more austere, his aura dense with power. He turned to Hawen, making it clear that this display was aimed at him, not her. “If not, I would suggest that you consider whether, in truth, I might be the equal of any Dalish Keeper, past or present. With or without the Arlathvhen’s consent, I would request that you should say the words of blessing over us. I respect your scruples, and this may be in private. We may be able to persuade the Andrastian Divine to conduct a public ceremony of blessing, should a spectacle be necessary.”

Hawen gulped, as if only thankful that the god had not called him _da’len_ again.

“ _Ma nuvenin, mirthadra Fen’Harel,_ ” he said. “I… I only wish for Virlath to be happy!”

“Your compassion does you credit,” said Solas, his expression relaxing. “Indeed, I wish the same.”

“Summerday is only three days away,” said Virla. “Would it be acceptable… if we began to plan?”

Hawen’s eyes flew up to the calendar of ropes and feathers that hung high up in the aravel. He looked puzzled.

“The calendar says it is seven days to Summerday, not three, _da’len_. There is plenty of time to prepare, and even for Fen’Harel to make his decision as he suggests.”

Solas exchanged a look with Virla – as if to say _let’s talk about this later._ He looked as if he were hiding shock.

She thought back rapidly. It was Solas who had said three days. She’d no idea how much time had really passed while she was in Aratishan, and nobody else had mentioned the date. He’d seemed so confident, and indeed it would be unusual for him to give precise information when he had any reason to doubt its veracity.

Looking up, she read the calendar: twenty-four days, four months, 8154 years since the foundation of Arlathan.

“ _Ir abelas, hahren,_ ” she said. “I have not had the chance to see a calendar recently. I must have mistaken the days. Well! Seven days. That gives much more time to plan. I should think what I might wear.”

“Not that much more time, _da’len,_ ” said Hawen, smiling at her enthusiasm. “But you will need to wear something.”

“Indeed, _vhenan,_ ” said Fen’Harel, with that same faint smile. “Anything less would be entirely inappropriate.”

  



	12. Bridles

The wind ruffled Virla’s hair as she cantered Mi’nan across the snow to the brow of the hill, from where she could watch the cavalcade advance. Cassandra and Solas rode behind, on black mares borrowed from the Skyhold stables. Beside them, Desjardins was on his own grey stallion, carrying the small Inquisition standard that she was still allowed.

Keeper Hawen was already at the crest, mounted on the clan's eldest halla. It was an unusual mark of honour that would no doubt mean more to her than any of the humans he was honouring in welcome. 

“ _Ma serannas, hahren,_ ” she said. “I appreciate you riding out with us to greet our guests. And… for everything. I am sorry that I did not confide in you, before I left last summer. I never expected you would accept Fen’Harel.”

The white-haired Keeper gave her a rare smile. “It might have been a step too far, back then.”

“Oh? What changed your mind?”

“Over the winter, I took the time to get to know the people who work within the castle: the kitchen hands, the stable boys. Your people, my dear, for they are all loyal to you, even when they scarcely understand who you are. It has been a small community, this last year. I asked them about your friends. Solas had been kind, they said, had helped them – healed them, encouraged them, inspired them. They _respected_ him, Virlath – as I have never seen humans or durgen’len respect one of the People before, besides yourself. More than that, they trusted him.”

Virla shook her head, surprised at all of this. “Even though he left? Though he deserted me?”

“The story they tell is a sad one: that he had decided he was too old for you, and that was why he left.”

“It is not so very far from the truth,” she said, casting a glance back over her shoulder. The rest of their party was still a way behind: the sunlight glinting off bridles and pauldrons. Solas had changed out of his muddied robes and back into his elvhen armour. The sight of his shapely thighs and calves, the proud way he held himself while riding, was only enhanced by the thought of how handsome he was when not wearing any armour.

Hawen coughed. “He looks good on a horse, doesn’t he?”

“Keeper!” she said, mortified. Then she grinned. “At least he agreed not to bring the griffon.”

****

They hadn’t simply ridden out there for the fresh air and exercise, but for political reasons. The approach had taken Divine Victoria’s party past the armies’ camps. Besides Fen’Harel’s elves, there were camps of humans, dwarves, golems, Qunari: armies that had fought Lusacan and had followed Sera and the elves back here. The wyverns and dragons had not stayed, to her relief. From her conversations with Solas over the last two days, she was beginning to understand how much of this army had been assembled by him, whether directly or indirectly.

_An army to fight against himself, should he turn bad. What kind of mind plans that?_

In any case, Virla had been better placed to explain what she could to Leliana, riding with her on the way. Harding’s scouts had let her know the chief guests in the party – Arl Teagan and Madame de Fer, with Tyrion Veneto as Duchess Amalia Forsythia’s representative from Nevarra. An odd mixture: they had all taken shelter in Redcliffe Castle on the way back from Anora’s court in Denerim, when the rock giants rose up from the earth and began to stride the land.

Today her people had risen to the occasion: the Hall looked stunning, decked with flowers and hastily assembled figures of Andraste. Crowds had watched them pass, the Andrastians among them cheering loudly, and even the members of her clan politely clapping the procession, or at least the halla.

Leliana had addressed them all from the steps, with a few well-chosen words that neither required nor allowed another’s to follow them. Her friendship for all present was established; her gratitude, indeed the world’s.

She spoke not of a Silver City, nor of dwarven mages, but implied that she would speak more later.

And now the Divine was speaking of Nevarra with Cassandra Pentaghast and the Forsythian representative, and the Inquisitor was entertaining Thedas’ newly titled Grand Enchanter, resplendent in long white robes that screamed of the magic used to clean them. Virla could tell that Solas was making a definite effort not to comment.

“You made a beautiful impression, greeting us from your hart,” said Madame Vivienne, inspecting the delicacies laid out on the long tables in the Hall. “It took me a few seconds to realise you had both arms again.”

“Yes, I imagine Divine Victoria wished to keep her knowledge of that fact secret until she had seen it for herself,” said Solas, carefully selecting a third frilly cake: pink to add to the gold and white ones already on his plate.

“The Divine has always dabbled in secrets and lies,” said Vivienne. “A pity she did not uncover yours sooner.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Vivienne,” said Virla, before Solas could provide any more provocation. “To be truthful, I enjoyed the ride out. It was a beautiful afternoon.”

Arl Teagan strode over to join them, greeting first the Grand Enchanter and then her and Solas, each bow more curt than the previous one. Virla was struck again by how abrupt the Arl’s manners were, in contrast to the Orlesians; how clearly he displayed his hand that all might see it. Vivienne didn’t trouble to hide her disapproval.

“It is a pleasure to see you here, Arl Teagan,” said Virla, striving to rise above the events of the Exalted Council. “I gather you will return to Redcliffe once we provide an honour guard for Divine Victoria as far as Val Royeaux.”

“That is so,” he said. “I am still at a loss to understand what happened here. Your armies killed a dragon, sealed up another breach in the sky, and this caused the rock giants to crumble? All across Thedas?”

“And the Inquisitor has her arm back,” said Vivienne. “Not to mention a certain mysterious apostate.”

“The Grand Enchanter is too kind,” said Solas, smiling blandly. “Where would Orlesians be without their love of mystery? Perhaps she would care to remember the occasion when she encouraged me to wear a mask.”

“Arl Teagan, it is as you say,” said Virla, as Vivienne stiffened. “But there are other strange changes: the Black City is gone; a Silver City sits within the Fade in its place; and dwarves can dream, and some even show signs of magical ability.”

Vivienne raised an eyebrow. “A dwarven mage? How strange. Are you quite sure it is not a small human?”

Solas chuckled. “I do not think the Arcanist would take kindly to that description.”

For once Vivienne’s iron control seemed to falter, and she seemed bewildered. “Dagna… is a mage?”

“This Dagna is a dwarf?” asked Arl Teagan. “Both a dwarf and a mage? Isn’t that impossible?”

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” said Solas. “I could scarcely believe it, when I saw the Black City gone.”

“Dagna grew up in Orzammar,” explained Virla. “She hoped the Hero of Ferelden might help her join a Circle.”

“I met him,” said the Arl, shivering slightly at the remembrance. “Yovah Aeducan, elder brother of King Bhelen. A proud man: stern, determined. Every inch the exiled prince. I don’t think he had much liking for magic.”

“From what she said, I don’t think he gave Dagna a second glance,” said Vivienne, taking up the story. “After the Blight, she came to the surface, but no Circle would take her. Everything she knew she learnt in Tevinter, from stolen tomes. Cullen sent some of our Templars to negotiate with the Imperial Templars tracking her.”

Solas looked surprised, and Vivienne gave him a scornful look. “Yes, apostate, I did take the trouble to talk to those with whom I worked for years. That is why I never trusted you.”

“There is little I can say that will affect your view of me, Enchanter,” he responded. “Nonetheless, I am sorry.”

The Grand Enchanter looked furious, with an ice-cold rage that swirled within her aura. “For what?”

“That I never thanked you for forcing me to admit how much the Inquisitor meant to me. But for you, I might have pined alone for centuries… millennia…”

Solas smiled at Vivienne, and even Virla couldn’t tell if his appreciation was genuine, or a deliberate attempt to unsettle Vivienne further. Arl Teagan probably hadn’t yet realised that he meant it literally.

“You disagree on many things,” said Virla, deliberately quoting a dialogue between them, “but neither of you is a fool. Solas assisted me in bringing the memory of my arm back across the Veil: magic similar to the shapeshifting magic known to many Dalish Keepers. As for his own return, I am content to consider that a miracle.”

“I appreciate,” said Solas, frowning slightly, “that it was difficult for the Inquisition when I left… the Inquisitor in particular. But truly, had I informed anyone of my whereabouts, it would have endangered the whole operation. I am sure I do not need to remind you of the Qunari plot disrupted last summer.”

Vivienne had control of her rage, and Virla hoped she knew she could not win a fight: not even a verbal one.

Arl Teagan’s face cleared. “Oh! Solas! You were the one the Inquisitor mentioned, at the end of the Exalted Council? The one who warned us of the Qunari plot, the Dragon’s Blood?”

“The Dragon’s Breath,” said Solas, inclining his head. “The plot that my agents and I disrupted, with the Inquisition’s help. We none of us wished to see the Qunari overrun the South.”

“Not to mention that he was there when I killed Corypheus, and before that, saved my life,” said Virla, smiling.

“And the life of Queen Anora,” said the Arl. He scowled, spearing a cake with his fork. “There were gaatlok barrels in the palace at Denerim. Had the Qunari plot succeeded, Ferelden would have descended into civil war.”

“Perhaps they would have had to make you King,” said Vivienne, her eyes sparkling with malice. “It is harder when one has to achieve power through marriage, is it not? Particularly when one is exiled to Orlais.”

“I am honoured to serve her Majesty wherever she chooses to send me,” said Arl Teagan, bristling.

“Your views about the Queen have undergone some rather drastic changes through the years, haven’t they?”

Virla caught Leliana’s eye across the room, and the Divine excused herself from her conversation. She drifted over, a delicate china plate balanced in one hand and a half-full glass of _Flames of our Lady_ in the other.

Seeing the interplay, and the Grand Enchanter’s scarcely veiled hostility to at least two of those present, Desjardins also came to the Inquisitor’s elbow, and offered to show the guests to their rooms. As Virla had hoped, Leliana asked for her and Solas, and Cassandra also, to accompany her.  

Hoped… and feared. Of all the people they needed on their side, Leliana was top of the list. She could make or break their reputations with a few, well-chosen words… as she’d amply demonstrated in the past.

Would she be willing to forgive Solas?

****

“The Arl’s marriage to Queen Anora was delayed by the coming of the rock wraiths,” explained Leliana, as they climbed the stairs. “They had been due to marry on Summerday, but it will not be before Solace now. There is much rebuilding to do in Denerim. Many of the structures were weakened in the Fifth Blight, and have not been properly repaired. Regardless, if he seems bad-tempered, that may be the reason. He is keen to see her Majesty again, and ensure that her intentions have not changed – or been changed – in the intervening month.”

“If you were due to attend,” asked Solas politely, “why were you travelling back to Val Royeaux?”

“Had the royal marriage gone ahead, I should have stayed in Ferelden. I had come west to make my annual pilgrimage to Haven, to visit the Inquisition’s memorial there. But, given what has happened and that they no longer need me in Denerim, I wondered if I might ask a favour.”

“You wish to travel by eluvian to Val Royeaux?” asked Solas, smiling down at her. “I can arrange that.”

“Is that an educated guess, or can you read minds, like Cole?” asked Leliana, returning him a piercing stare.

Solas waited until they were all in Virla’s room – Leliana’s, for the duration – before responding.

He stood by the fireplace with her, facing Leliana and Cassandra as they sat on the divan, left and right hands of the Divine whose shadow stretched over them all. Yet the room was golden with diffused evening light, the doors to the balconies closed – with new bolts added on them, noted Virla. She must thank Desjardins later.

“I have the ability to read minds,” said Solas, in his most serious academic tone, “but I do not practise it, just as I do not practise blood magic. Your Perfection, I should wish to be as honest as I can with you, as I am with Virlath and Cassandra. And therefore, I would request you to be similarly honest with me. If I told you that Virlath and I wish to be wed on Summerday, before you return to Val Royeaux, would you give us your blessing?”

They had told Cassandra earlier, that Hawen had given his consent, and now she nodded as Leliana looked at her for confirmation. “As I said, I do not believe that either of them is corrupted. Solas may have been like Cole was once, but he is more elf than spirit, and you know that we took Cole into our hearts. He tells me the elvhen do not suffer the same depredations as when a modern elf recovers from tranquillity. Virla’s Keeper approves.”

Leliana let her voice mimic an Orlesian lady’s high-pitched trill, incongruous with her heavy Chantry robes and headgear. “A Dalish Keeper letting his First marry the Dread Wolf? What will the Arlathvhen say?”

“I am more concerned about what you will say,” said Solas. “I did not attempt to deceive the Arlathvhen.”

The artificial humour died from Leliana’s face. She looked sad. “Are you sorry for what you did?”

Virla watched him intently, as he tried to frame a response. His life was too immense, for this small room; his deeds too great to be constricted to one sentence. Solas had shaped worlds, had dreamed the Fade into existence; he had been not one god, but many; and he…

“Yes,” he said.

“You destroyed an empire,” said Leliana. “Virla will not try you for that, even though it was her people’s.”

“Yes,” he said. “She stopped me from making the same mistake twice. The world is not mine to shape.”

“Whose is it, then, if not the Maker of the Veil?”

His voice was calm. “I am not your Maker, Leliana.”

“Dorian thinks you are.”

“But I am not.”

“What do you want, then, Solas? Besides my blessing for your marriage to our dearest friend?”

“That would be more than enough,” said Solas. He reached out for Virla’s hand. She squeezed his cold fingers gently, wanting to stand with him as he faced trial. “She is goodness itself. Without her, I would have no peace.”

“That is not enough,” said Leliana, sharply. “You cannot sit idle while the oppressed of this world suffer.”

“What would you have me do?” The question was aimed to all of them: Seeker, Divine, Inquisitor.

The flames of the hearth crackled in the silence, and somewhere down below she could hear music playing, filtering up the stairs and through the stained glass windows. Suddenly, it all fell into place.

“Sylaise,” she breathed, drawing the focus of attention away from her gilded lover. Solas looked down at her, the sadness in his eyes spurring her on to renewed conviction. “We should make this place a place of learning. Arts and medicine… painting, mural, mosaic, sculpture, music, herb lore, history… archaeology! Not only elves, of course. Those with no talent will be trained as hunters, sourcing food. We will finance ourselves by trade.”

“An active peace, I see,” said Leliana, raising her eyebrows. “Very well. Will you teach these mortals, Fen’Harel?”

His lips twitched, and the sadness faded. “If you consent to bless my bond with Virlath.”

Cassandra was ready to clap her hands for joy; and even Solas was smiling, pleased – as Leliana embraced them both – to be able to offer her some control, respect the temporal power she held. Virla had never been happier.

  



	13. Diligence

He’d found some oasis of calm at last, in the simple preparations of undressing for sleep. Exchanging the gilded armour for standard issue beige cotton tunic and leggings, Solas felt the pressures of the day begin to fade. He was old enough, Void knew, to recognise the relief even of his own faint guilt at wearing robes abstracted from the stockroom: how much better it felt to wear clothing acquired with explicit permission.

Sometimes it was the little deceptions that seemed worst: what if some simple laundry maid had been blamed?

In any case, those robes were safely being washed. And Virla’s chatelain Desjardins had assigned him – for this week, messere! – a quiet room in the mage tower. Blessedly far from his old room over the garden courtyard, with its wistful scents of amrita veil and embrium, its calculus of half-truths. New-built and plainly furnished, its beauty lying in its bare simplicity, this room was free of any past associations: no art, no symbols, no memories.

This blank canvas helped, and so had the unexpected willingness of those who cared for Virla in extending forgiveness to himself. Leliana had only made one further condition: that they must seek and pay for the help of Josephine as soon as possible. Tomorrow he would act on that, and the flight would also give him time to think.

And thought was desperately needed. Idealism would only provide the goals, the direction; the others would be suspicious of all the things they didn’t say, as well as what they did. He dreaded meeting Dorian – and Bull, and Cullen – if they accepted the invitation to attend the ceremonies. Virla’s plans would do as a start, and he’d already started selling them to his elves. Nonetheless she must know as well as he did that her plans – _their_ plans – were going to need substantial further work, weaving in a multitude of adaptations to their web.

Or… did she know that? Only last summer she’d seemed surprised at the presence of spies within her Inquisition. The gulf between his own experience and hers was the greatest threat to the success of their relationship. How easy might it be to hurt her, even though it was the last thing he wanted?

Though it was ridiculous, he told himself, to contemplate the prospect that she’d used her love for him – or worse, pretended it – as a tool to persuade him to do what she wanted, to save her own world at the cost of his. The evidence was entirely against that, and any demon that suggested the contrary would get what it deserved.

With all these thoughts in mind, he stepped into the Fade.

****

At Hawen’s suggestion, Virla had foregone the chance to sleep in the room assigned to her over the garden courtyard, and was tucked up snugly in an aravel, sharing it with Hawen, Nissa and the old craftsmaster Taniel – and a half-finished statue of a wolf. Its wooden head and paws emerged from a block of wood, as serene as any in the Emerald Graves, and Virla idly wondered how the woman might contemplate carving Solas’ lower parts.

With that in mind, she turned over and slept.

Immediately, she was in the Silver City, and, to her surprise given the lateness of the hour, alone. Was Solas visiting the eggs? A swift glance down found her appropriately dressed, back in last night’s long white gown and smooth red hair. And if the tan leather boots were an anachronism, they were hidden underneath the dress. With three quick paces she was out of her room, and was startled to find herself already outside of the tower.

She was fifty yards along the street, enjoying the scented blossom of the trees, when she first noticed the spirit following her. Unlike in Thedas, spirit citizens here looked like elves – creatures of both matter and light, with richly coloured hair and glowing skin. These were the millions Solas had been prepared to sacrifice her world to save, the millions he’d already saved from Elvhenan – who would have died had she not healed the Breach, not killed Corypheus, had Solas not suppressed the Nightmare. She’d seen them as a dragon when she’d built this city, again when she had brought the eggs with Solas… but none of them had yet approached her to speak.

Virla turned around and smiled. The spirit was a dark-skinned woman: tall and muscular, in leather armour.

“I welcome you,” she said, speaking in the ancient elven Solas’ ritual had taught her. “My name is Virlath.”

“All know who you are, honoured lady,” said the spirit, putting its hands together to make a formal bow. “My name is Diligence. I bear a duty from nine thousand years ago, a gift from the Mother. In this I am diligent.”

The spirit seemed unassuming enough, but Virla felt her blood run cold. That threat of vengeance Flemeth had once made, a warning of a reckoning – _Mythal will be avenged!_ – and Mythal’s soul in her… what price?

“What is this duty?” she asked, forcing herself not to show weakness by looking around for Solas.

Diligence frowned, and bowed again. “I have already carried it out.”

Puzzled, Virla was about to ask what she meant, when she felt the Fade shifting, folding and compressing around her, and her own body changing with it: a forced shift, and a strange one, for she was…

 

“Get in there, girl,” said her new master, “and do what Falon’Din commands!”

She was Diligence, or what she might have been, once – a tall elven slave, staring down at the man in horror. It wasn’t usually her who did this, it was the pretty ones, the charming ones – but they were sick, he said. More likely they were pregnant, or this was deliberate punishment for her, for some imagined slight. She’d been dressed in the new high fashion of the day, her waist and hips held in and her chest pushed upwards by a corset of magic, a white cotton gown suspended in a single pleated column from her breastbone to her ankles. Her lady was wearing a much finer version – red lyrium-veined silk – for the bonding ceremonies this week.

The man wasn’t even talking to her, he was leering at her breasts. Linarla had known him for a hundred years, long before this bonding with her lady, and knew he was ruthless with his slaves. It was not known what this elder Falon’Din might choose to do – the stories she’d heard of him were varied at best. She’d seen for herself what punishments her new master tended to inflict. And so she bowed, and smiled, and slipped into the room.

The respected elder was alone, with his back to the door, his hands entangled behind his back. Virla recognised him immediately, partaking of the slave-girl’s numb feeling of dread – but she was powerless to stop the dream.

She knelt down on the floor, head to the ground, heavy undraped breasts against her knees, remembering what the other girls had said. “Guide me in sweet sacrifice of duty,” she said, her eyes closed, voice trembling.

Virla’s heart thumped painfully. It was hard to disentangle the memories of her own feelings, her newly triggered responses, from those of the dream-girl. But hers were more complex, surely: love, as well as fear.

“What is your name? How old are you?” Falon’Din’s voice was calm, and musical.

“My name is Linarla,” she said, trying not to sound surprised. “I am two hundred and three years old.”

His footsteps approached from across the room, then stopped close by to her. Linarla imagined his eyes raking her body, the way her new master’s eyes did, and managed to suppress a shiver. Why couldn’t the elders let her get on with her normal duties? She was happy in the laundry. _Clan linens in forest streams_ , thought Virla.

“There is nothing to fear, Linarla,” said Falon’Din. “Drink this. Then, for your own sake, I must blindfold you.”

Virla looked up, through Linarla’s eyes, and back in time, and blinked in surprise. This was not the Solas of her Dragon Age, but the spirit’s memory of a much younger elf, somebody who – he’d said – made more mistakes.

Linarla was shocked to see a noble meet her gaze, and Virla supplemented that shock with astonishment that Solas was so _similar_. She’d expected someone younger, nine thousand years younger if Diligence’s hint were true: merrier; less worn down by the cares of the world; more _free_. But it was him, the same Solas she knew.

Hiding his sadness behind a mask of polite interest. Hiding his self-loathing behind that same faint smile.

And his forehead carried the emerald branches of the tree of Mythal.

Linarla drank the witherstalk and elfroot syrup he offered – _combined painkiller and method of birth control,_ thought Virla. _When I made it for the clan, I hadn’t realised quite how ancient that recipe was_ – and knelt in silence as the elder brought a strip of lilac silk up to her eyes, and tied it round her own shaved head.

“Is this your first time?” asked the man her new master had called Friend of the Dead, as he untied her dress and corset, his warm hands gentle. “Either way, there is nothing to fear. You deserve to be made happy.”

Linarla nodded, and Virla nodded with her. It seemed unlikely that this was the workings of a demon – unless that demon were herself. She’d thought she was safe within the Silver City, Solas had even said there were no demons strong enough to take the eggs. Virla felt terrified the real Solas would walk in on them.

The slave felt simply terrified, but that was a state she had inhabited for centuries: not new. Her body was lifted and placed on a soft fabric mattress, the elder’s hands encouraging her to lay her head down. He’d looked like a priest – this strength was unexpected – and for the first time in her long dull life, Linarla felt a rush of excitement. Occasionally one of the pretty girls came back and, blushing, murmured: they’d enjoyed the night.

It wasn’t wrong to enjoy it, so they said, but it was best my lady never hear of it, lest she be jealous. Her family had guarded her chastity for bonding. Slaves couldn’t bond, so this was the only way they’d ever experience this… pleasure? The elder was massaging her feet, soothing the calluses with healing magic. It felt… honourable.

Virla found she was relaxing too. This strange sensation of inhabiting a larger, older body, the slave-girl’s dulled emotions waking: need she feel guilt at sharing in her sudden joy? Solas had seen her being pleasured by others, surely he could not mind if the other was… his younger dream-self? And she’d known he’d done this before.

Particularly when he’d given her this same massage a hundred times by day. His hands on her calves, her thighs, skating over her lower back, palming her – unaccustomedly large, and dark – breasts. Gradually speeding up, gauging her tolerance, her relaxation. And, because this was before the Veil (a concept Linarla could not comprehend), directly coaxing her with magic.

They were so familiar to Virla, the movements of his hands, flowing and pressing, pulling and pushing, circling and entering, that she knew immediately, when it… diverged. Suddenly, so very suddenly, Linarla was on her knees and elbows, head knocking against the mattress, and Solas was fucking her.

It was the most wonderful thing that Linarla had – or as far as she knew, ever would – experience.

Her life had been entirely dull, each week like every other week, and even this bonding of her lady had seemed as if it would change little. Until this Falon’Din had entered it, had _entered_ her, and suddenly she felt no pain, no dread. She… felt, and felt as if she mattered. Each thrust a shattering of barriers she’d put up to defend her self.

Virla gasped, wide-eyed with shock and lust. This gift seemed like a potent liquor which must leave bitter aftertaste and aching hangover. Linarla’s ecstasy was uncontrollable, a day like no other day – _and how long had she lived, and did she still remember, was this the only time?_ Solas had said – or had he said? – he was a virgin.

Each thrust of his a joy that she might have… forever. Each lie a fleck of soot that blighted joy.

Both women closed their eyes, and begged release.

****

Solas had checked on the eggs, securely cloistered in their womb of flame, and paced away, wondering what gift he might bring to Virlath. The blossoms on the trees were beautiful, and it was a simple mercy to free a branch of them and ‘twine it to a crown, smiling at Diligence and Duty as they watched. The tower opened to his touch.

It was a surprise to find that she had left her room – she’d seemed reluctant to explore the City without him, but undoubtedly that could be seen as wisdom. He tried another room, the handle sticking slightly as he pushed at it. The experience earlier in the day of finding her undressed within the bath must be affecting him, he thought.

He stepped into the room, and realised it was Mythal’s magic, as subtly devious as ever, that had made it stick.

There she was, his love, entrancing, tranced, lying on the floor. A light hand on her shoulder failed to wake her. Solas pushed the strands of dream away, and focused so that he might see what she saw, feel what she… _Oh!_

He pulled away, desperately embarrassed. Experiencing the female orgasm from within, he ought not to… this was worse than the bath, worse than anything that Hawen might accuse him of. Something he had _never_ done.

But there was no other spirit in there with her, she was locked inside her own mind, dreaming of… well, it was patently obvious what. He remembered the flames this morning, how adorably angry with herself she’d been.

He could wait a few minutes longer. Smiling at his own absorption in her, something that he hoped he might make literal… sooner than expected, since he had to _live, and not merely exist…_ he sat beside her, absently stroking her beautiful red hair. A mercy the Dalish did not shave their heads… vallaslin were bad enough.

After a minute, Virla woke. Her Fade-violet eyes filled suddenly with tears as she looked at him, around the room, and his heart sank. She looked… angry, and not adorably, but genuinely angry… with himself?

“What is the matter, _vhenan_? What happened?”

“Where is the spirit called Diligence? That used to be a slave-girl called Linarla. A slave-girl that you fucked!”

She had got to her feet, and he decided not to follow suit… towering over her would not help assuage her anger. He tried to remember. Linarla, Linarla… a melodious name with a horrid meaning, a common name for slaves.

“Nine thousand years ago,” she said. “Before the foundation of Arlathan. If our calendars aren’t lying as well.”

Well, that would explain why it was not easy to remember. “I cannot have lain with her, _‘ma lath_. I promise you I would remember that. Perhaps it is best if you give me a minute to think. I wish to be completely honest.”

Virlath looked as if she was calming down, not quite retracting her accusation, but breathing more steadily. Her cheeks were distractingly flushed. Solas thought about the spirit he had seen outside: a tall, muscular woman…

“I lied to her, not you,” he said, pinching his nose as he got to his feet. He could recall all of that day. “If you wish, I could show you what I remember? A bonding ceremony. Two nobles, at the Temple of Mythal… pre-Arlathan. Take my hand?”

 

She did, and he looked down at her, a small woman suddenly dressed in what was then the new style: a column of pleated lilac falling underneath her breasts, her red hair braided high. Her nipples were bare, forced high by magic, and he resisted the urge to voice his admiration lest he make her any more uncomfortable. This was not about beauty.

It was about trust, and her expression was still… hurt. He showed her what he’d seen that day. The noble groom had promised the use of one of his virgin laundry slaves to a man that Solas knew would mutilate her. He had claimed Temple privilege, the first time he had ever done that… and earned the other man’s lasting enmity.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” had asked Mythal, in a quiet aside. He’d nodded.

“She was red-haired!” said Virla, round-eyed with amazement, as they exited the hall, watching his younger self pace up and down in thought. “You never told me Mythal had red hair!”

He smiled down at her, willing her hurt away. “It is not easy to compress ages of unspoken wisdom…”

“You don’t just love me for my hair, I hope,” she said, the words not entirely flippant.

He sighed. “Have I ever given reason to suppose me shallow, _vhenan_? Come. I promise you this will not hurt.”

  



	14. Lilac

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick link to the fourth _sa’vunin_ mentioned: [Under the Fresco, Chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4587210/chapters/10686515).

Virlath looked up at him, not moving, a puzzled expression on her face. Her hand was on his arm, absently stroking the silken fabric. The living magic woven into it reacted to her touch exactly as he remembered it should do. And while the Veil remained, visiting a memory like this was as close as he could take her to the world where magic was as natural as breathing. Open to the Fade, and so they had to keep their feelings under tight control, obtrude as little as possible on the setting. That was why he was dressed as he was, and Virlath… as she was.

He’d seen enough desire demons, he told himself – he was too _old –_ to let himself be affected. It was merely her body… what mattered was the woman within, the one who feared he was lying. Who worried it would hurt.

“How can you promise that, that it won’t hurt?” she’d said, biting her lip. “How can you know how I will feel?”

“I… can’t,” he said, his eyes drawn to her mouth by the movement. He must not focus on that, ought not to notice the way her lips were the same dusky pink colour as her nipples, the flush now fading across her chest…

“Then why promise?”

He breathed in, willing himself to concentrate, to focus, to be calm. “I simply wished to reassure you. Let me rephrase. If you become uncomfortable, _vhenan_ , with anything that’s here, we can return immediately.”

She nodded in understanding, then gestured at herself with her free hand. “How is this even possible?”

“Which part of this?”

“I look like myself, not someone else. But I wasn’t here nine thousand years ago. So how can I be here now?”

His other self had finished pacing up and down, far across the hall. He would go in search of the room he’d prepared, and they would have to follow, lest the memory fade away. “I’ll explain as we walk,” he said, patting her hand to keep it on his arm. “But, as I said before, when we are close to others, we will… need to stay quiet.”

With Virlath’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, they followed his old self along the corridors, through the graceful walkways and arches of the temple, every surface glittering with precious stones, imbued with magic.

His heart was hammering, and he was excruciatingly aware that the calm mask he presented was far from what he felt. That she was alert enough to question the experience: that was why he loved her. And yet, thinking of what they had come here to see, if he could have thought of any other way to prove he hadn’t lied…

 _You could have simply told her,_ he thought, cursing his recklessness. _Selfish, to want to share this with her._

****

Virla found herself tripping along beside him again, absurdly conscious of her light attire. He wore heavy priest’s robes, their swirling azure lyrium silk identical to those his other self inhabited. The magic encircling her chest did not prevent her breasts from swaying freely – _so impractical! –_ as they hurried along. With his long stride, she had to take three steps for every two of his. But he was paying no attention to her body, displaying an indifference far from the hot embarrassment he’d been suffering this morning. Context must be vitally important.

This humid jungle temple was heavy with scent, soaked in magic. Solas’ controlled purity sang a clear white note in the flaring, seething mass of emotions she’d witnessed. She clung to it, and him. Was he actually going to show her himself laying with another woman, or deluding her into a false belief? And if the latter, then she might remember these acts happened nine aeons ago, when morality and culture might have been different.

She had to excuse him. She needed to excuse him.

They had fallen far enough behind his past self – _Falon’Din!_ – that she dared to speak again. “How can you recall correctly, after nine thousand years? I can’t remember every day from nine years ago, let alone nine thousand.”

“These memories of me have been preserved in lyrium. My twin beneath the earth was always watching me.”

“And you can bring me here as your… guest, like a spirit can bring dreamers into their imaginings?”

His voice was calm. “Yes, that is right. You will remember that the magic of my orb allowed you to take me by your side into your own memories, even back to the first time, when we spoke in Haven after it had been destroyed.”

“But how could Linarla remember what she did? She didn’t seem that powerful: no orb or mark. And she didn’t call herself by her own original name, when we met in the Silver City; she called herself Diligence.”

“No,” said Solas, frowning. “I do not believe she remembers anything of her past life.”

That was a relief. The prospect of spending nights surrounded by an unknown number of Solas’ previous girlfriends… a terrifying thought, particularly if any of them were likely to be jealous. _I’ve had enough of Envy._

“When Linarla died,” continued Solas softly, “she passed to me, and I preserved her in her strongest virtue.”

“Oh…” said Virla, remembering the fresco. “Is that what the fourth _sa’vunin_ meant?

“Yes, though I would rather not discuss that here.” He strode on across the courtyard, dwarfed by citron-puffing vines. He wasn’t looking at her, his brows drawing together in thought. “Did you see if Linarla had Mythal’s vallaslin?”

 _Had she not explained that?_ “I couldn’t see her. I _was_ her.”

Solas nodded, his eyes lighting with some strange feeling. Regret, perhaps, or relief? “Then she must have been Mythal’s. The memory you experienced… it was taken by Mythal, perhaps as soon as later on this night. The vallaslin enabled the Mother to control her mind, or protect her by taking any memory that harmed her.”  

“But she enjoyed it! How could Mythal have taken that from her?”

They had caught up too close to his past self, and he slowed his pace. “I can only conjecture,” he said, his voice catching as if in the grip of strong emotion. “What is certain is that Mythal wished you to have it.”

Virla frowned, lifting her flimsy lilac skirts in her free hand as they climbed up marble steps that spiralled round one of the giant vines, its heady perfume swelling and blossoming. “How could she, when she never knew me?”

He sighed. “She did not need to meet you to know that you were worthy, to set her terms for inheritance. Mythal intended to bequeath that memory to whichever elvhen woman inherited her soul, whoever had also unlocked the city of my heart. Diligence – Linarla – was locked there. Flemeth would never have accessed that.”

 _The Golden City, the city of his heart, that had turned black._ “But why did Mythal take it?”

Solas cast a quick glance down at her, then as rapidly looked away. His ears were tinged pink, embarrassed. “When I found you in the tower, I caught a glimpse of what you were experiencing. Perhaps she thought that it was her right to have it, that no slave dedicated to her should hold what ought to be her own.”

The thought made her skin crawl. _I promise you this will not hurt._ But the thought of what he might have seen – her naked body, writhing on the mattress, utterly consumed with lust – reminded her of how he’d made her feel – _Not her. Linarla._ _Her as well. And Mythal._ – As if the world could never be contained within a single body, no matter how hugely intricate. A song from soul to soul. Virla felt her heartbeat racing, her pulse fluttering in her wrists and neck. She needed him in her body like that citron-flower craved the sun, petals furling open to the sky.

 _Seven days,_ she thought, catching her breath as they crossed another humid, scented hall, high up in the sky, a part of the temple floating in mid-air, perched upon a massive emerald crystal cluster. Pale sweat dripped down between her breasts. _Seven days, and he will be my bondmate. Surely then he’ll… and we’ll…_

Virla bit her lip again. His face was a careful blank, the one that meant he was trying to think. She needed to think as well, not make it worse by feeling. _The Fade is shaped by emotion and intent._ She forced herself to analyse the sensations, the pauses and differences she’d noticed in Linarla’s dream, but had ignored.

“You made her come with magic,” she said, in a low voice. “Your hands might have been real, I think, but not the way your legs brushed in between her thighs, or… and that’s why she had to wear a blindfold. But why?”

“Yes… why?”

Virla realised he was far more distracted than he feigned. “You’re not even thinking about her, are you? The most intense experience that woman ever had…” She paused, then added, under her breath: “…or me.”

Suddenly the corridor looked familiar, and she recognised the place where Linarla had stood – would soon stand, within this memory – staring down at her master. They stopped in an alcove, watching Solas run his finger down the huge stone door. The priest Falon’Din frowned as it opened to his touch. An uncanny reflection, spying on someone who thought himself alone and unobserved… as if she and her Solas were the spirits here, not him.

That older Solas winced, and his eyes snapped to her face, suddenly intent. “This incident will not be the last.”

“Incident?” _An odd choice of word._

“I should not have mentioned it. I will tell you later. Come, we must enter before the door closes. Stay quiet.”

It was the same room she remembered from before, but all the fittings were familiar, from the small mosaic of Mythal to the tiled marble patterns on the floor, to the two clean mattresses and herb dispensing equipment.

As he gently ushered her inside, she heard her Solas mutter, anguished: “If only he knew…”

****

Linarla was on the mattress, her dark skin glowing in the candlelight. Solas was regretting this even more bitterly now, that he’d not reconsidered bringing Virlath here to see this. The temple atmosphere was oppressive, the scent too sickly, the candles of a poor quality of wax that predated his earliest improvements. That he had used them at all had been an affectation, a wish for something real within the shifting veilfire of existence.

He had something real now, and he was never going to leave her.

His younger self was entirely focused on his wish to give the slave woman pleasure, his hands massaging her legs the way he administered restoration daily in the temple, to all who could afford its price. He would have given the healing freely, but it was not part of his mission to offend Mythal… and so he played within her rules.

His younger self was entirely focused… and so he might dare reach out for something real.

Solas inched forward to where he’d placed Virlath in front of him, her breasts rising and falling as she stood in silence, her breathing barely controlled. He sought out her hands, was surprised to find them clenched.

Her response was unexpectedly physical, arching her back and moaning, letting her head drop back. As he eased her hands open, stroking each palm, she shuddered. No amount of hard-won control could have prevented him from moving forward, instinct demanding he allow her to pillow her head on his shoulder, to succour his thirsty gaze with the contrast of the milky paleness of her skin and auburn braids upon his flowing gold and azure silks. He brought their joined hands around her waist, holding her tightly against his chest; his lips against her ear.

“I could not have borne for you to see this,” he whispered, “before you had promised yourself to me.”

Virlath wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was transfixed on the sight of his younger self caressing the other woman’s breasts, and he wondered again how many times Mythal had brought herself low enough to experience that memory for herself, to indulge in the weakness of her priest. And now this young Dalish woman could have him at her beck and call, could…

The woman moaned again, and Virla echoed it, pulling his hands up to her breasts, wordlessly demanding that he copy everything he saw. He was fully hard, pressed up against this memory of Virlath’s hipbone, her lithe and beautiful and – _fenedhis,_ semi-naked – body. Had he wanted to seduce her, he would never have contemplated this – it was not _moral_ , to take this pleasure in someone else’s pleasuring, let alone _safe_ – but it was too late. They were both trapped, watching… and was that what the Mother had intended, all along? He shivered, dragging his hands away. “Not here, _vhenan._ I… I… we could go now, if you want?”

Virlath shook her head, making her braids brush up against his lips. She tilted her head to the side to whisper back: “And deny the entire purpose of why you brought me here in the first place?”

“That… is a good point,” he said, feeling like the entire grounds of the argument had shifted while he wasn’t looking. He’d have to explain that he’d never made a habit of watching this kind of thing. Some Dreamers had, but never him. Although it had sometimes happened by accident, that he had drifted in on…

He pulled his hands behind his back, heart racing. His mind was awash with desire both ancient and new, and unless he could control himself, the demons plucking at the Fade would claw their way in here.

In silence they watched as his younger self perpetuated his mistake – drawing his hands and power so slowly across and into Linarla’s body that Solas thought he might himself faint from terror, so intense was his need to recreate it all in Virlath. It seemed nine thousand years changed little, at least in terms of his basest desires.

_Maybe a real relationship will change that._

Linarla gasped, a feral smile stretching her lips beneath the silken blindfold. He watched his younger self appreciating the sounds as his magic began to take over the motions, quietly stepping back to clean his hands.

“Is this the first time that he… fakes it?” asked Virla, standing on tiptoe to reach her lips to his ear again.

Her scent was driving him crazy, at this proximity. Close enough to dart her tongue out, suck the lobe, the point, anything to distract himself from more vigorous imaginings. It would be so easy to persuade her on to that spare mattress, so terribly easy to bury his magic between her legs and bring her to the far side of damnation.

Or better – _worse! –_ his throbbing erection, aching for release.

_And it wouldn’t be a mistake, with her. I love her. She loves me. And Mythal gave her… gave us…_

_I can’t think about that now. I can’t think._

_What did she ask me?_

He forced a measure of control, only his ears allowed to burn. “On a woman. I had, er, practised on some halla in the temple. And a wolf. Over the previous year or two. This was not exactly an impulse on my part.”

Virla’s eyes went wide, and he cursed himself for shocking her. “A woman’s body is different from a halla’s.”

He knew his cheeks were as flushed as her chest. “I was already an accomplished shapeshifter. I theorized that I could account for all the differences, from what I myself had experienced in forms. In general… I was correct.”

Silence again, so that the echoing crescendo of the slave woman’s guttural cries might not be interrupted. And when she lay there, sated and content, their eyes were drawn away to his younger self. He might have pulled Virla home then too, pride overcoming honesty, except that everything else had been gifted by Mythal. This was the part that only he could show her: Falon’Din walking away, tears in his eyes – compassion for Linarla’s life, and grief.

And guilt. It hung about him, as heavy a chain as Mythal’s vallaslin, the knowledge of a thousand years of wrong, and no clear path that might lead to salvation.

He was grateful Virlath made no comment, simply watched him meditating; hoped that she would _see._

 

When the memory dissipated, she took his hand and led him, silent, back to her room, back to lie on her bed. He let her cradle him in her arms, unable to frame any coherent response. She was bright, unbroken…

“Why did you do it, Solas?” she asked, eventually. “Did Mythal make you do it?”

“No. It was my idea. My fault. She deserved better,” he said, taking a shuddering breath. “They all did.”

She sighed. “I hope you’re not going to tell me you made a habit of it, with every slave you felt sorry for.”

He clung to her, head resting on her white-robed chest, hot cheeks against cool silk, love overpowering desire. _Incidents._ “I might have done. But when Linarla did not recognise me the next day, I treated it as a warning.”

“Perhaps Mythal sought to protect you from your own compassion?”

A comforting thought, if it were true. He tightened his hold around her waist. “I don’t know, _vhenan._ Perhaps.”

  



	15. Azure

Virla lay back on the memory of her bed, wondering how best to comfort Solas. He lay with his head pressed against her chest, his arms around her waist, her left arm curled around his shoulders. That something had upset him was obvious. She could guess it was to do with Mythal’s involvement, or his own embarrassment, or guilt, or all of those, but what she ought to do to help was not clear at all. She wished she _knew_ more.

To her relief, Solas seemed to be calming down of his own accord, his harsh breathing slackening.

She ventured to stroke his shoulder, her fingers rubbing circles on his pale green cotton shirt. From his reactions in the ancient Fade, she’d expected he might tense up or draw away. But he seemed to appreciate it, squeezing his arms around her gently in return. For all that he was the Dread Wolf, Pride, a god with many names; a being of more complexity than she could grasp, he was still an elven man, and capable of being loved… and loving.

“I love you,” she whispered. It had been a deliberate decision to speak in Common, now they were back here.

He echoed it back, unmoving, quiet: “I love you too, my heart.”

She thought about what he’d said, about his memories preserved in lyrium, Valta explaining how Shapers kept the Memories of Orzammar… and Dagna talking of a wall as high as a mountain. Mythal’s soul was small and dense – smaller than Fen’Harel’s orb. There was something Cole had said, thought Virla, something important.

 _Important,_ that was it!

He might have felt the way her hand stilled on his shoulder, or simply finished his train of thought, for he eased himself out of her grasp, moving to lean on one elbow over her. His face was close enough to her own to admire the freckles on his nose, his full pink lips, the stormy beauty of his eyes, half-hooded under brown eyelashes.

Close enough that she might press her lips to his, but she was still embarrassed about her actions in the temple, no matter how gently he’d rejected her advances: _not here, vhenan._ She’d let him make the next move.

Instead, she smiled, willing her cheeks not to flush with heat, and let the silence stretch.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes briefly closing. “You deserve better than a man lost in contemplation of his past. What are you thinking of, Virla?”

“Something Cole said to me, at the Exalted Council. You know the way he listens to the Fade. He said: _She knows they're going to kill her… can only save what's important. Precious space to remember her smile._ ”

“You are wondering if he meant Mythal.”

It was a statement, in his usual way of seeing to the heart of the matter, and she nodded. “Did he?”

“It is possible. The precious space being the smaller quantity of lyrium within the soul you took.”

“Don’t you know for sure?” she said, surprised. “You knew her... well.”

She didn’t want to think how well. Had Solas noticed her hesitation? He sighed. “Mythal was certainly aware her death was imminent. Undoubtedly she would have made preparations. As for knowing her… I don’t think anybody ever really knows her. You _are_ her, now, _vhenan._ Not hers, not her vessel, not her servant… her.”

“Do you think that Mythal’s memories trigger when I meet the person that experienced them?”

His voice was neutral, thoughtful as he responded. “A reasonable hypothesis, though we lack data.”

“You must have many memories of Elvhenan…” she murmured, wondering if she dared put a hand up to his jaw, run her thumb along his cheekbone, draw his face down... _no!_ “Will you show me more, some time?”

His expression was pensive, but he held her gaze, speaking with suppressed bitterness: “The parts I can recall.”

Virla frowned. “You went to Mythal’s temple as a penance, so you said. You were dressed as a priest, but with her vallaslin upon your forehead… did that mean you were enslaved? Did she take your memories as well?”

Solas shrugged. “How would I know? I did not realise the purpose of the vallaslin immediately.”

“But surely if your memories are taken, there is a gap in time – you would realise it?”

“Not if entire days were lost. Did you know exactly how many days had passed, while you were… in Aratishan?”

She shook her head, accepting the point. He’d avoided the word _possessed_ , for which she was grateful.

“Besides, before Arlathan was founded,” he continued, warming to his theme, “there was no agreed calendar. The Titans had not yet created moons. The sun rose and set, governing the waking and the dreaming worlds.”

It was strange to think of Thedas with no moons, but she had no reason to disbelieve what he said.

“You said, before we came to Skyhold, that Elgar’nan stripped your twin of memories, but you preserved them. If Mythal used vallaslin to take your memories… could you have worked together to see what was missing?”

He gave her an approving look. “Yes, we did try that. The results were inconclusive.”

“So… you didn’t know if it was not happening at all… or that it was, but your twin was concealing it?”

“Or, as I suspected, Mythal and Elgar’nan were collaborating: taking the same memories at the same time.”

“Yes,” she said, slowly, “I see. How complicated it becomes, like blindfold chess. And had you uncovered solid evidence, they might have taken any memories of that. Or persuaded one of you that he was lying to the other.”

He nodded, finally rolling onto his back beside her, a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes. “Mythal’s priest had no particular reason to trust Elgar’nan’s prisoner. Some decades it seemed best to trust Mythal; obey her.”

Virla thought about the way she’d seen Mythal in the temple, addressing his younger self – _are you sure you know what you’re doing?_ There had been a possessive look in her eyes… or was she imagining that?

One question had been burning in her mind for years: ever since she’d seen him stand with Flemeth, watched the human woman stroke his face; ever since she’d read about the goddess in the fresco runes; ever since she’d heard his voice say that she was _the best of them._ She might never get a better opportunity to ask him.

Virla rolled on to her side so she could watch his face closely. “Did you sleep with Mythal? Lay with her, I mean.”

“I cannot remember doing so,” he answered, and she knew he knew she noted the care with which he spoke.

“What can you remember? Did others? Did you want to?”

“It was a long time ago, _vhenan._ But… I can guess why you are asking. If Mythal can, through careful preparation, cause you to experience memories she saved, you would be wise to be forewarned of what they might involve.”

He looked pale, and more than usually grim. This couldn’t be easy for him, either.

“Thank you,” she said, reaching across to lay a hand on his, an arm across his chest. “This slavery in Arlathan – and before Arlathan – sounds worse than that of Tevinter: chains around your mind, not just your body.”

She sighed, and he wriggled an arm around her back, to pull her in beside him. “Mythal was the best of them,” he said. “She cared for her people. She protected them. My purpose in the temple was to provide healing – like the massage that you saw. I never saw anybody mutilated or tortured by her command, I never treated injuries she’d caused. Temple privilege allowed her priests to intervene for good: even for the good of slaves, like I did.”

“But she could have removed incriminating memories,” objected Virla. “Memories of tortures she’d inflicted.”

“If so, then she cared enough to know such things were wrong.” He shuddered. “That was more than most.”

“The vallaslin was wrong.” Virla laid her head on his shoulder, hugged him. “No wonder you hated it on me.”

“At first, it was her way of protecting us. To hurt one of the People marked with Mythal’s vallaslin was to invite swift retribution from her sentinels. But even her punishments were just, proportionate; open, not in secret.”

 _Petitioners’ paths in the Arbor Wilds; and mosaics._ “But others learned to use the vallaslin in different ways.”

“Yes,” he said, his lips compressed. “I do not wish to dwell upon that now. In answer to your original question, it was common knowledge that Mythal would consent to lay with Elgar’nan, and with no-one else. Whether she actually did, in waking or in dreaming, I do not know. To the priests and sentinels, she was the Mother.”

Virla thought about that, and about the odd look she’d thought Mythal had given him: it hadn’t _seemed_ entirely maternal. Echoing his previous posture, she levered herself up on an elbow, her face close above his. It would be necessary to keep her voice deliberately light, to mask the painful way her heart was thudding.

“So… is it kind of weird, to bond with me, since I have her soul? Like… kissing your own mother?”

Unexpectedly, he chuckled, the lines around his eyes crinkling in a most distracting way. “Certainly not! You are far too young to be my mother. Given our age difference, it would be more plausible the other way around.” He blinked. “Not that I am your father, naturally. Or your ancestor, however many hundreds of times removed.”

“I suppose... that’s true,” she said. “I’m sorry. Perhaps it was a silly question.”

His expression softened. “Whatever happens, Virla, what we have is real. You are not a substitute for Mythal.”

Solas’ eyes were warm and kind, and she found herself smiling down at him, relief flooding her body. She’d thought that, hoped that, but to hear him say it quite so plainly… it reassured her more than she could say.

“If Varric were listening to us,” she said, hiding her feelings behind the same bantering tone, “I wonder what he’d make of it. Even if I didn’t mention the halla, all this Fade stuff would make his stories so much weirder.”

“Or he’d tell us to stop talking about kissing, and get on and do it,” said Solas. His tone wasn’t light at all, and the warmth in his eyes had kindled, sparking a reflected fire within her veins as well. “It is safer, here.”

She caught her breath, then let the words emerge in a rush. “Can we… wear what we were wearing?” 

His eyebrows rose, a sudden smirk gracing his face. His robes went tight and blue and silky, a priest’s long tunic and breeches, swirling with iridescent lyrium. “You are playing with fire, _‘ma vhenan’ara_.”

“I’d rather play with your cock,” said Virla, switching to ancient elven as she also changed her robes for something far… less comfortable: that thin pleated lilac column that wrapped around her waist and her legs. She watched his eyes drag downwards to the flush that rose upon her breasts, then back up to her lips.

“Such filthy language,” he said, mock-severe. “How dare you speak to one of Mythal’s priests like that?”

“A priest? I thought you a soldier,” said Virla. Her hand inched down his body, towards his edhis; her eyes never left his own. Elven made some subtle turns of phrase permissible: “…from the way that you stand tall.”

His hand grasped her wrist, just before her fingers could caress his hardness through his clothes. She growled at him, then yelped in surprise as he bore her hand, and then her other arm, above her head, forcing her on to her back. He twined a loop of conjured vine around her wrists and nearby bedpost. She could feel her blood beating in the back of her neck, bare now that her hair was up in braids. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this.

“You will find it easy to break the vine, _vhenan_ , should you wish,” he said. He discarded his tunic, leaving his own chest bare, laying his body warm and close above her own. Intoxicating scents of sky and citron filled her nose and mouth. “This is because you did not ask permission in the proper way. I will show you how it is done.”

Virla nodded, not needing to feign obedience. In truth, she did feel scared. He was the Dread Wolf, after all; immensely old and powerful. He’d taken slaves. He might well have forgotten more than she had ever known.

Fen’Harel was watching her, gauging her reactions like he’d done last night. “May I kiss you, Virlath?” he asked.

His tone had been polite, the inflection respectful. She needed to memorise both, and his form of words, and it was only when Solas’ lips twitched that she realised she had not responded. “Oh! Oh, yes…” she said, faintly.

He laughed, clearly relishing his control… but there was no malice in it, nor in the fragile kiss he pressed upon her cheek. She turned her head, hoping he would kiss her lips as well, that she might taste him for herself.

“Not yet, _vhenan,_ ” he said, sitting back on his haunches. Her eyes drank in his torso, from elegant collarbone and shoulders to firm abdominal muscles. His knees pressed against her ribs. She loved his supple strength.

“Why not?” she asked, her eyes roaming over his body. Tempting to simply break the vine and drag him down.

“Because it is much more fun to run my fingers down your collarbone… like this,” he said, suiting the action to the words. She shivered, cursing herself for it. “Anticipation is a large part of the pleasure, you must know that.”

“Enough to wait ten thousand years?”

It caught him off guard, and his hand stilled, his little finger just above her nipple, not quite on it. Virla bit back a moan: she wanted him to touch her chest as his younger self’s hands had rubbed Linarla’s breasts; more freely than the way his tranquil half had pleasured her in Aratishan; more vigorously than last night’s ministrations.

“Enough to wait a few more days, elsewhere,” he said, flushing slightly. “I should like to touch you… may I?”

This time she responded immediately, and was rewarded with a smile. His hands went to her neck, stroking this memory of her skin from behind her ears to her breastbone; but this time pulsing veilstrike, and proceeding on slowly to grasp both her breasts in his hands. She gasped to find her need so firmly satisfied with magic and touch. Just so would he mould a statue out of marble, with tender artistry… or a verdant hill, a snowy mountain.

But… he’d never yet let her do the same to him. “I should like to touch your chest as well,” she whispered.

After a lengthy beat he nodded, advising she start on his neck and back first, and she felt the conjured vine release. Solas lay down on his front, breathing more heavily than she’d expected. Her arms were stiff, and it took a while to make her fingers and magic work together, taking his hint about anticipation seriously. Thus, she worked conscientiously around his muscles, trying to find the tension and release it. She knew some theory of massage for the purposes of healing, but had no experience at all when it came to communicating her love.

Perhaps simply focusing on making him feel comfortable was enough. And they had time… at least another four hours before they woke and he would have to leave in search of Josephine. Once she’d worked through every muscle she could reach, she dropped a gentle kiss on the side of his neck, feeling him shiver just as she’d done.

“Thank you,” she added, inflecting it with as much respect as she could remember. “Would you roll over… um… I mean, am I allowed to?”

Solas lifted his head, inclining it a fraction, and as he rolled over, still dressed in the clinging silken breeches from a priestly age, Virla realised the pillow was soaked with tears. She looked down at his tightly-closed eyes, damp lashes, his lips pressed firmly together… the almost imperceptible shake of his head that told her she would be wiser not to press questions. His pride ran deep, deep as the Wellspring below the earth, and if she were to help him let go of his past, she’d have to work through it, not around it. Creators knew – or _had_ known – what tortures he had seen, or been involved in. And… he had died and been re-born scarce two full nights ago.

She’d been selfish to worry about Mythal. If she could give him any comfort, why should she care how he perceived it? Virla ran her thumbs in circles along the underside of his collarbone, concentrating on the smoothness of the motions and her love. _Keep going,_ she told herself. _Has anyone ever looked after **him** , before?_

Gradually, his breathing and his heartbeat slowed, and the tears stopped trickling down his cheeks; and had they been outside of the Fade, she might have thought he was asleep, but for his occasional groans and murmurs of encouragement. Virla kept on working downwards. When she reached his hip bone, her fingers brushed against the fabric of his waistband, and she could see his edhis swelling under the silk, feel its radiating heat.

She looked back up at him, wondering whether to ask him if she could work up from his feet, following his own rules for massage, when she felt her right wrist circled firmly by his hand. This time he didn’t pull it away, but curled her hand around his edhis, his own hand warm around hers, guiding her. The silk had been unlaced, as if – no, surely _by_ – magic. She watched his face, loving the focus of his expression – eyes still closed, too intent to smile – and snuggled in by him, her breasts soft against his side, her hand following the rhythm he’d suggested.

Barely a minute later, still hard, face achingly flushed, he opened eyes grown dark with lust. “I want to fuck you,” he said, his tone inflected like a command. Polite, respectful… oh, it made her _wet_. “May I, please, Virlath?”

“Yes,” she said, without a second thought, and imagined away the linen wrap, just as he captured her mouth in an appallingly possessive kiss. Appalling, because this was the Dread Wolf she’d consented to; and possessive, because she was entirely, utterly, and terribly in love with Solas. “I love you,” she gasped, as he drew back.

He wasn’t wasting any time at all, kneeling between her thighs, not even bothering to free his own legs from their breeches, thrusting into her with his fingers; licking at her clit and breasts with magic. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said again, hoping that she was. He positioned his edhis carefully, cradling her hips in his hands to angle her upwards. His tip felt like stonefist pushing against her aura, but denser than his magic ever could be.

He leant over her, moving his arms to lean on his elbows either side of her chest. The motion had him pushing slightly into her, and she couldn’t help the sensual moan that escaped her, even though he had barely breached the surface. He stilled the other magic for a minute so that she could feel the new sensation, inch by perfect inch.

The look in his eyes was so warm, so intent, so _loving_ – that she found it hard to hold his gaze.

Gently, Solas rocked his hips, easing further into her with each thrust. The way he filled her was a hundred times more intense than his magic had been, so much as to be entirely incomparable, as if she had been fucking air before, or the water licking round about her clit. She clung to him, arching back and hips to pull him deeper, groaning as he pulled away each time. Her hands worked down his back, first clamping on to his shoulders, then, as he lay more heavily on top of her, over the back of his waist and down to his buttocks, urging him into her.

When she looked away for the third time, he chided her. “Please look into my eyes, _vhenan._ ”

“I love you,” he gasped in elven, as she obeyed. “I love you, Virla, I love you… I love you.”

His thrusts were hard and deep now, and she didn’t have the breath to respond, crushed below him as she was, her head tipped back to keep her gaze in his. He seized her lips in a bruising kiss, his tongue a tongue of flame and ice and cinnamon within her mouth. She gasped her breaths as he sank sharp teeth into her neck, digging her nails into his skin, matching his frantic rhythm thrust for thrust, a sword upon a grindstone sparking. She had never felt so much a part of him, as if nothing short of a Breach – and not even that – could separate them.

It was entirely unexplainable, and entirely, world-shatteringly, right.

It was right, and it was still right when he fell over the edge, gasping her name – not Mythal’s, not anybody else’s, _hers –_ softening and screaming at the same time, pulling her with him through clouds of frost and arcing lightning, through dark whispers and the blinding light of death. His aura emptying, filling hers; her aura bursting its own banks and overflowing into his; a flood; tsunami hitting rock; avalanche and earthquake and caldera.

It was right, and it went on for longer than she’d thought was possible: entropy an afterthought in this high-flung wellspring of creation. _Magic at the heart of the heart of the heart_ , she thought: _sulahn’in’vhenan’vhenan._

The colour had leached out of the room: blankets and walls and bodies all bleached silver.

His arms were clamped around her shoulders, his back a mess of sweat and magic – frost and ash and veilfire – and her nose was squashed up into his chest, her braids undone; her body aching horribly, but in a good way.

Virla began to giggle, eyes streaming with ecstatic tears, as she watched the colour seeping back into the room. Solas rolled them over, not releasing his grasp on her at all, clutching at her – stunned, she thought, by the sheer quantity of magic they’d released. “I love you,” she said, still laughing. “I had no idea it would do _that_.”

“Neither had I, _vhenan,_ ” he said, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it of the ringing in his ears. “That… was magnificent. I hope I didn’t hurt you. I am thankful that Summerday is only three more days away.”

“Seven, and you didn’t hurt me,” said Virla, cuddling in beside him as he conjured a warm blanket over them.

He groaned. “Of course. I still don’t know how I miscalculated. Thank you, _‘ma sa’lath,_ thank you… thank you.”

  



	16. Glowing

They held each other for a long while, watching unspeaking as the colours and the sounds returned to normal… or what she had begun to recognise as normal for the Silver City. Solas had retreated back into himself, silent as his fingers deftly worked undone her messed-up braids, smoothing each brightening tendril over the blanket. Enough that he was here, his body firm and warm against her skin: naked; comfortable; at peace.

Or, if not entirely comfortable, entirely at peace – at least he honoured her with the outward semblance of it. She didn’t have to ask again to know he worried she would turn from him, if she knew the details of his past.

Therefore, just for now: _in my arms lies Eternity._ No past, no future; only adoration and the moment.

****

The moments ended, he was gone: to wash and dress and meditate; and fly. Virla lay in the Fade, imagining Solas’ route to Josephine: through Skyhold; through the eluvian; through the Crossroads. He’d said the closest eluvian to Antiva City was north-east of the river city of Seleny. She’d never been to either, so she had to rely on Josie’s tales of her homeland: the romantic exuberance of its traditions; the lush vineyards she managed on her parents’ estate; the lanterns on the promenades; the squawking gulls around the docks; the trading ships.

In Antiva, so the saying went, they drank coffee in the mornings, wine throughout the day, and poison in the evenings. She and Solas had made powerful enemies. Though they might not die of old age, presumably they would need to defend themselves against assassination, and their people against direct attack. With the people Solas had gathered, they could train a small defence force, or a guild of assassin-spies to rival the Antivan Crows: an additional Left Hand it seemed Divine Victoria might welcome, if it reduced the burden on her own purse.

There was no point in being naïve about the need for adequate defence: her continued possession of the lands around Skyhold – incorporating the memorial at Haven, and the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes – was on the condition that the land was considered as a holy site. Belonging to neither Orlais nor Ferelden, Josie had arranged it to be held in trust by the Inquisitor for the duration of her life, answerable only to the Divine. At some point it would become clear she was not ageing, and the threat of assassination would increase.

Of course, before then, they might find themselves at war with the Qunari, and all bets would be off.

She shuddered, missing Solas’ calming presence; and began to drift awake.

 

Virla was in the Keeper’s aravel again, her eyes closed, half-asleep. Gone were the scents of the Fade, the cinnamon and citron; gone was the comfortable bed. The aravel smelled of sweaty elves and moss, the faintest iron tang of blood. Keeper Hawen was snoring. Her bedroll was warm enough, but a hot dampness in between her legs suggested her monthly time had come, with all its attendant cramps and frustrations.

The potential embarrassment was less of a problem than the shock of realising that the demon must have kept her cycle under its control while she’d stayed within Aratishan. Even through the year of closing rifts and battling Corypheus’ forces, she’d only missed the occasional cycle through stress. This first time in a long time would confirm she was not pregnant. More importantly, that she might one day still be capable of being so.

They must discuss that tonight: the eggs; elvhen reproduction; specifically, his views regarding children. If she and Solas were capable of producing them, would they be immortal too? Would they be Dreamers? She’d been going to ask him last night, before the encounter with the spirit and what followed had driven it from her mind.

She hadn’t seen any children in that ancient northern Temple of Mythal.

Pushing away that thought – which proved nothing, after all – Virla decided she’d better wake and deal with the practicalities of bloodstains on the bedroll. Then she heard voices. She’d been very good at feigning sleep even before she was sent to the Conclave as a spy. Unable to change the habits of a lifetime, she listened.

“Nissa, why are you staring at it?” asked Taniel, in a soft undertone.

“Its eyes glowed green,” said Nissa, sounding fearful, “when I woke up last night. How could it do that?”

“Fen’Harel’s eyes? You must have imagined it. The statue’s not even half-finished yet – it hasn’t been blessed by the Keeper.” The craftsmaster sounded disbelieving. “Why were you awake anyway?”

“Keeper and Virla were making noises in their sleep.”

Had she not been inclined to listen anyway, the younger elf’s words would have caught her attention, a fear of embarrassment or exposure much greater than that of a few spots of blood on a cloth. What had Nissa heard?

Taniel laughed. “Keeper snores, you’re used to that. Listen to him now, like a wheezing halla.”

“Not like that,” said Nissa, her voice dropping further. “Groaning noises… like Emalien and Ithiren in their aravel, when they think nobody’s nearby. Well, that was Virla. Keeper was… different.”

 _Fenedhis._ She regretted agreeing to Hawen’s suggestion now, even if it had been the best way to calm his fears of a physical assault by Fen’Harel on her virginity. She ought to have slept in the room Desjardins had assigned.

The women were getting dressed, shifting about in the aravel for their day clothes. Reassured, perhaps, to find that Taniel had not disputed her testimony, Nissa giggled. “Hey, Taniel: do you think she sleeps with Fen’Harel in the Beyond? He’s meant to be the Roamer of the Beyond. Maybe they meet there.”

“The Bringer of Nightmares…” muttered the older woman. Virla lay very still, trying to breathe deeply.

“But he’s good now, that’s what Keeper said. So does that make him, I don’t know… the Bringer of Wet Dreams? You saw his thighs… mmm. I wouldn’t mind a bit of that between my legs. Even if his eyes glow.”

“Nissa Al’var! You are talking about a god! What would Keeper say if he heard you? He got you a good man.”

Nissa sighed. “I can look, can’t I? As for Soren, I thought he would have come with the rest of Fen’Harel’s people. Keeper said he’d let us bond this Summerday, if he were back from the west. He was going to join us here.”

Taniel made a non-committal noise. “Talk to Virla, now she’s back. Maybe she’ll know what happened to him.”  

“She grew up in the same clan, didn’t she? Lavellan, somewhere up in the north.” Nissa giggled again, bravado hiding her unease. “They say the men are harder there.”

“The sooner you are bonded the better, _da’len_ ,” said the craftsmaster. “I told Keeper not to wait until you turned eighteen. They should have let you bond with Soren Lavellan at the Arlathvhen and have done with it. _Garas_ , _ma halani._ Let’s get this out of here. I want to finish his… hindquarters today. Stop giggling, you’ll wake her.”

Virla listened to the sound of the women half-dragging, half-carrying the wooden wolf out of the aravel, grateful that the Keeper’s snores continued. She opened her eyes at last, blinking in the reddish dawn light, and blushing furiously on the inside too. With any luck, she could be dressed, take some of the women’s cloths from the clan’s stash, and get her bedroll cleaned before her clanmates saw the blood. Magic was particularly useful, sometimes.

 

Leliana had sent a messenger to find her, and as she climbed her own stairs – thinking it better to arrive the normal way – Virla wondered about what Nissa had said. Why should the wooden wolf’s eyes glow? It made sense that the stone wolves in the Vir Dirthara might have been enchanted. Had Solas cast a spell on it, to make it her protector? It seemed the likeliest possibility. He must have forgotten to mention it, that’s all.

She knocked on the door, conscious of the image it presented. She bestowed a brief appraising glance, not quite a smile, at Leliana’s templar guardsmen: _I am the Inquisitor, honouring the Divine by giving up my quarters._

Though it was true, that Leliana’s voice held far more sway than hers, in certain quarters. The image of the Herald of Andraste was powerful among the common folk, particularly the elves, but many nobles of Orlais and Ferelden still found it easier to pay lip service to the wishes of the Divine than to an elf. _Change takes time._

The door swung open, Divine Victoria’s secretary bowing to her and ushering her in, before passing her to make her way down the tower. This was to be a personal meeting, then, not a public one.

Virla went up the final flight of stairs, within the room. Leliana was out on the nearer balcony, enjoying the view across the Frostbacks. With her white headdress she appeared far taller than she was. “The Grand Enchanter spoke with me this morning,” she said, a slight frown marring her forehead. “Indeed, we breakfasted together. It is rare to see Vivienne at a loss, and best that such sights remain out of public view.”

“Then why tell me?” asked Virla, her eyes tracing the snow. Last night, she had been the avalanche. For all that she had lain with Solas in the Fade and not in Thedas, and despite her cycle, her body still felt heavy with arousal. Her mind was a mess. She forced herself to concentrate. “Vivienne would not appreciate it, I am sure.”

“I am sure I may trust you to be discreet, Inquisitor. Last night, we spoke of the changes in the Fade: you said that all mages would now see the Black City healed and turned to silver. I am not a mage, and must rely on mages for my information. Vivienne said she had spent the night in contemplation of the Silver City. What did you see?”

She had to be as honest as she could be. “Last night? The Silver City was visible. It appears to be permanent.”

Leliana sighed. “Early this morning, according to the Grand Enchanter, this Silver City pulsed with light, and the sky of the Fade glowed with many different colours. She wishes me to clarify the Chantry’s position. As you might imagine, I am seeking independent views, before I take a public stance in Val Royeaux on Summerday.”

Virla nodded, hiding her surprise and shock behind a careful smile. Presumably Solas had not known of these… effects of Fade sex, either. “You wish to use your sermon at the Grand Cathedral to address these issues?”

“Yes. Summerday is particularly holy in Orlais, which of course is why Anora wished to celebrate her marriage on that day, to underline the fact that I also belong to Ferelden! But I did not call you here to talk of noble politics.”

“Summerday is holy in many traditions,” said Virla, playing for time. “The Dalish celebrate it as the beginning of summer, and Solas tells me that elven traditions on that day go back to before the foundation of Arlathan. The ancient Tevinter Imperium used to celebrate it as Andoralis, dedicated to Andoral, the Old God of Unity…”

“...and Dragon of Slaves, associated with the constellation Servani, the Chained Man. He succumbed to the Blight and was killed in the Battle of Ayesleigh by the elven Warden Garahel, in the twenty-fourth year of the Exalted Age. Do not forget, Inquisitor, that I trained as a bard. What of the Silver City?”

Virla shook her head, gathering her scattered wits. “I do not forget that, Your Perfection. We need to reach out.”

“To Tevinter, as well as to the elves?”

“To both. The Imperial Divine is a mage. They do not blame Magisters for the blackening of the Golden City, but their Old Gods’ lies. Threnodies 5:11: _demons… began to whisper to men from their tombs within the earth._ Your reforms narrowed the gap between practices of the Chantry and the Imperial Chantry; but immense differences in theology remain. Archon Radonis will be listening closely to your speech. I met him, Leliana, did you know?”

Leliana’s eyes narrowed. “When?”

She would tell her about the actual meeting last summer, not the time she’d seen him in the Fade, the time he’d thought she was Razikale. “Morrigan knew, but I am not surprised she did not tell you. She plays her own game.”

Virla summarised what she knew – that the Archon sought alliance with the South against the Qunari; that he knew that aid might need to be in secret; that his rule was under threat from militaristic factions within the Magisterium. She’d advised Radonis to withdraw from Seheron, which he appeared to have done; Solas had weakened the Qunari forces by winning many viddathari to his cause; and… what was the final part?

“I suggested he might appoint Calpernia as his heir,” said Virla, “…if the Magisterium continued to object. Oh… and he can shapeshift too. I saw him flying as a raven.”

“This would have been useful information,” said Leliana with a sigh. “Why did you not tell Sera, or Tallis?”

Virla had to be careful here: any hint that she had been possessed would weaken her own influence. Solas had assured her that the effects would not have been perceptible, but she could ruin all that now with careless talk.

“I was not sure if I should trust an ex-Qunari spy with that,” she said slowly. “I only saw Sera briefly.”

“You trusted The Iron Bull,” said her former spymaster, ushering her back inside. “But I appreciate that the experience with Fen’Harel – losing your arm, your faith challenged – might have made you less willing to trust.”

“It was not simply that,” said Virla, sensing danger. “Partial knowledge can be dangerous, and I was out of contact for a long time. Most likely the information you could glean from other sources would be more current.”

“We didn’t get much sense from Dorian, for a while after you disappeared,” said Leliana, settling herself on the divan. “He blamed himself. It was hard to dissuade him from doing something rash. He… was not the only one. Until Sera’s message came through, we had no idea where you were: dead, enslaved, petrified by Fen’Harel…”

Virla remembered Sera’s terror: _frigging scared, we were._ “I’m sorry, Leliana,” she said, taking a seat beside her friend. She stared at the halla on the fireplace. “It was selfish of me, to hunt for him.”

Leliana took her left hand and squeezed it. “No,” she said fiercely. “The Maker guided you. He made you love him for a reason. Maybe, if he is no longer lonely, Solas can reconcile himself to a world where the Veil exists.”

She turned to look into Leliana’s eyes, her own shining with tears. The Veil scarcely existed for her, now, able to dream and wake at will… and presumably the same was true for Solas? Had he used his orb to tear the Veil down, he might have killed them all. Instead, they had a harder path… a Summer Pilgrimage, untrodden.

“You called him the Maker of the Veil,” she said, a catch in her voice. “How can you reconcile yourself to that?”

Divine Victoria head her head high. “The Maker brought an exiled dwarven prince to Ferelden to save us from the Blight. He sent a Dalish elf to be Andraste’s Herald. Why should an immortal elvhen god of rebellion – or noble struggle, depending on whose translation one believes – not also have a role to play?”

“But the First Blight lasted two hundred years,” objected Virla. “Why did the Maker not save the people who died then? Were they less worthy than the people of Ferelden in the Dragon Age? It seems unlikely.”

Leliana looked sad, but the argument was in no way new to her. “The Maker left the world of mortals because we were determined to make our own way, even if we hurt ourselves, and He could not bear to watch. Dorian identifies this absence with Fen’Harel’s long sleep in uthenera. I… am not sure.”

They fell silent, and Virla thought how ironic it was that the Divine of the Orlesian Chantry should come to a Dalish elf for guidance, particularly one whose own faith lay in tatters. _The fact you are Dalish isn’t always a disadvantage,_ her friend had once said, when she’d been ill in Denerim. She could not let Leliana break the Veil.

A quiet breath, for courage, then she spoke. “Not being sure… may be the message of the Silver City.”

The Divine looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“My Keeper believes the Silver City is a sign that the Great War between the Creators and the Forgotten Ones is over; that our Creators have prevailed. A triumph of good over evil. A sign that no more Blights will come.”

“But the Evanuris were elven mages, not gods. I thought you said that your Creators were these Evanuris?”

“Powerful enough to run an empire based on more magic than Imperial Tevinter… and to raise the Veil! But that is knowledge to be used with care. We do not wish a world where magic pens people… _like cattle for slaughter._ Instead… _with arrows aflame, the walls of magic melted, and the Prophet and her warriors were free._ ”

Leliana frowned. “You wish me to suggest that the elves flocked to Fen’Harel’s cause like Shartan’s People followed him, and call a new Exalted March upon Tevinter? Because, I warn you, I am not inclined to do so.”

“No!” cried Virla, horrified. “All men are the work of the Maker’s hands, including those in Tevinter. Magic can be a force for good: in fighting Blight, in closing the Breach, in freeing Andraste’s people. But magic can also be terrible. Rock wraiths... Archdemons! Perfection is fleeting. Certainty is dangerous. We must strive for wisdom.”

“Let chaos be undone,” said Divine Victoria, with a firm nod. “Very well. Now… what are you going to wear on Summerday?”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Virla is quoting from Shartan 10, the Canticle that Leliana has recently restored to the Chant. I hope you are enjoying this post-resolution fic. I'm always interested to know which bits you like so I can do more of them, in a future story if they don't fit this one.
> 
> I'm afraid you can't avoid the standard wedding preparations: Leliana is about to bore Virla silly by talking about clothes. It's a good job Divine Victoria's faith is so strong, because the only choice she gets these days is which shoes she can wear beneath her robes. She now has a hundred pairs with different embellishments, mostly gifted by her friends so that she can't feel obliged to auction them for charity immediately.
> 
> Addendum (21 April 2017): Added a new perspective for more backstory, [With the utmost propriety](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10693035/chapters/23681916), which is from Josephine Montilyet's point of view and can be read at this point, before Chapter 17.


	17. Landing

Solas flew Zephyr westwards, back to the eluvian he’d come through, relishing the ferocity of the wind full in his face. It was something to experience this speed within his own frame, not in the body of a bird or dragon; to feel his own joy magnified through the griffon’s heavy wingbeats. It also helped distract him from his thoughts.

He’d forced himself out of the Fade this morning, out of Virlath’s soft and beautiful embrace, and ducked his head and hands in icy water. That hadn’t worked, and nor had morning meditation, the freezing water still dripping from his skull. Such habits, he had once presumed, would ground him in this altered waking world.

And if they didn’t… there was always tea.

But even tea hadn’t worked. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt himself adored. Felt loved, could see her smiling face, feel her hands press tentatively into his shoulders, remember how surrender felt; and union.

A dream, but soon it could be real.

And he couldn’t think of anything at all, nothing but a slow and delicious fuzziness. It warmed him from the inside out, imagination breeding knowledge. Just so would she smile, and giggle; bend and stretch and curve for him; just so would he have her, hard and slow and strong against her bed, a door, the floor, a tree.

Doubtless Varric would have put it more succinctly: _so, she fucked your brains out, then?_

Despite its terrible inaccuracy, the thought made him smile. The dwarf’s words would live on long after he was dead. And while others might dislike his own reappearance on the scene, Varric had always had a soft spot for his romance with the Inquisitor, and was bound to attend the ceremonies even if only to write them up for coin.

That thought of the ceremonies reminded him: he needed to seek Lady Josephine’s assistance. He could not lay with Virlath until her father the Keeper had joined their hands together; and if he was to settle Sera’s bet and thank her for enabling him to be here bodily in Thedas… he needed to lay with Virla in the war room before Divine Victoria returned to Val Royeaux that day to deliver her Summerday sermon in the Grand Cathedral.

Or he could be forsworn, to Hawen or to Sera. He hadn’t told Virla about the bet.

How was it possible, he wondered, to explain to your wife-to-be that you needed to consummate the wedding in between the Dalish and Andrastian ceremonies? How was it possible to do this without anybody knowing?

If anyone could help him achieve all these goals with the utmost discretion, it was the Inquisition’s Ambassador. Unfortunately, she did not seem to be enjoying the flight at all. Her head was firmly pressed against his back, sheltered from the wind. Her arms gripped each other so tightly around his waist that he was glad he had not partaken of lunch. Indeed, they must all eat when they landed; maybe he could ask Lady Josephine then.

Solas thought it through. Elvhen history was long… there had certainly been times when intercourse in private or public formed part of the bonding ceremonies. _I wished to speak with you on a matter of some delicacy…_

His mind began to drift again, and he urged on Zephyr faster.

****

They were nearing the Tellari Swamps now, the Antivan term long corrupted from the original elven name _Adahl’tel’halani_ – _the trees that would not help_. It had been a haunt of demons long before Flemeth’s daughter Yavana made it a sanctuary for dragons. Yavana’s death had caused them to flee, ranging out across Thedas, from the Antiva and the Free Marches southwards to the highlands of Orlais and Ferelden. Only a strong personality like that of an ageless Witch of the Wilds could compel them to live in such close proximity.

That thought cut through bliss like a poisoned dagger. Some day he would need to deal with Morrigan as well.

Virla thought that she remained within the Tirashan, nursing her baby son. If she were not stubborn, there might yet be a way to rid her of the powers of the Well. If she were disinclined to fall in with his plans, then more drastic measures might be required. Perhaps Leliana might be willing to divulge some useful information.

Certainly the Inquisition’s former spymaster, now consecrated as Divine, had helped him succeed today already. Leliana had briefed him as fully as if he had been her own loyal agent: explaining how to gain the approval of each member of Josephine’s family; arranging for a uniform to be delivered to his room; writing a letter; explaining how much Josie knew about him… which was far less than he had supposed.

The information only flowed one way, it seemed: from Josephine to Leliana; rarely the reverse.

He’d wondered, with an eyebrow raised, how Divine Victoria could be so certain of her friend’s location, but Leliana was not about to part with all of her network’s secrets yet. Though she did loan him a sending crystal, in case he could not find Lady Josephine, or the former Ambassador needed further reassurance.

It had not been needed. He’d forced what remained of his wits on the eastbound flight to focus on playing his role as charmingly as any of the Divine’s messenger-agents, and had come away triumphantly with Lady Josephine Montilyet, happy in the golden sunshine that was only now beginning to fade into evening.

Well, he’d been happy; she’d been terrified. Hopefully she would feel better once they landed.

Solas urged Zephyr downwards, and after a minute he felt Josephine stir from her frozen hold around his body.

“Why are we landing here?” she called, making her voice louder over the rushing wind.

“I’ll explain when we’re down,” he replied, hoping that Zephyr could make the landing smoothly. “Hard to land!”

****

He’d led Josephine up to the waterfall, confirming to her what Leliana had explained she’d conjectured to her friend: that he was an elf as ancient as the ones she’d read about, in Inquisition reports of the Temple of Mythal.

Unable to prevent his face heating up at the thought of what he was about to request, he’d explained that he and Virlath were due to be married on Summerday. Josephine sounded pleased for them – or at least was able to make her voice sound pleased. She continued to look grey and ill from the flight. Perhaps food would help?

Now, before they passed underneath the waterfall, Solas cast a glance back to the other side of the river, to the muddy swamp where Zephyr was disassembling a bogfisher he’d helped her catch. The meat was a new taste for her. However, in his long experience, no griffons ever disliked it for a meal. It would occupy her for a while.

Casting a barrier over himself and Josephine, he guided her forward, through the gleaming curtain of water and towards a narrow opening in the rock, with pleasant scents of lotus and embrium. There was a larger entrance further round, big enough for Zephyr, but this was the faster route for now. Josephine glanced up at him, bright hazel eyes wide in surprise, and he smiled absently down at her, his mind on how to phrase his requests.

Steps led down to a quiet courtyard, open to the sun. The stones were slippery and covered with moss, and they had to pay attention on the way. Normally he would have flown down, but obviously that was out of the question. Josephine had rarely been out in the field with them – she had screamed when he had unthinkingly Fade-stepped to her side just now, after he had paralysed the bogfisher. Better to remain entirely a man.

Solas ushered Lady Montilyet to sit on the marble bench that ran around the old stone fountain, still running since he’d checked it earlier today – the water clean and pure, diverted from the river’s flow and merging back into it through shallow channels running underneath the floor. It used to be a standard mechanism for heating buildings such as these, with fire runes appropriately placed to warm the water.

He crossed the cold stone floor to unlock a nearby chest. From it he retrieved the fresh provisions he’d stored earlier today, and brought them back over to the Ambassador, laying them out beside her with a smile. Besides a flagon of an excellent Orlesian red, there were quails and pheasant, bread and tarts from Skyhold’s kitchens.

“I did not think it politic,” he said, passing a small plate and a tiny fork, “to rely on dining on swamp-fare.”

“Where are we?” asked Josephine. Her eyes darted from the food to the fountain, the steps to the colonnaded walls, a puzzled expression in them. “You said there was an eluvian – is this an ancient elven temple?”

“Originally it was a shrine to Ghilan’nain,” he said, adding in case she had forgotten: “who is still revered by the Dalish as the Goddess of Navigation. Of course, it has served many purposes through the centuries.”

Josephine nodded politely. He poured some wine into a small glass, and passed it to her. She hesitated slightly before raising it to her lips, and Solas wondered if – despite her apparent trust in him – she remained wary.

“When we go through the eluvian,” he said, serving himself a small measure from the flagon, “we will enter the world that Morrigan called the Crossroads, which will serve as a translation for the original elven name. This Crossroads bears some resemblance to the Fade: floating rocks, strange foliage. Since it was constructed for the elves, you may find the sensation of passing through it uncomfortable. I will ensure we pass through it swiftly.”

“Inquisitor Lavellan explained to me about the Crossroads,” said Josephine, nodding again. “I understand.”

“If you would wish to confirm that I am indeed conveying you to Skyhold at the Divine’s request, I have a sending crystal which you might use to speak with her. She may not be available immediately, but she said she would leave it with a trusted agent, who would seek her out from any meeting she may be engaged upon.”

He fished in a pouch secured to his belt, and brought the small blue pendant out. It shimmered in the sunlight.

“A radiant sapphire…” whispered Josephine. Then she shook her head, pursing her lips in thought. “No. It would not be polite to disturb her. Besides, we will be there tonight. Does Baron Desjardins know I am coming?”

“I believe you are to have your old room, if he can contrive it,” said Solas. Clearly her wariness was not regarding his trustworthiness in delivering her to Skyhold. “Virla is discussing our wedding preparations with him today.”

“Who will be conducting the ceremony?” asked Josephine, sipping at the wine and taking a small crust of bread.

He smiled, feeling his heart beat faster at the thought of that day. “Keeper Hawen will conduct the bonding according to modern Dalish rites, and the Divine then seeks to bless the marriage in an Andrastian ceremony.”

Josephine frowned. “But what of you? Are there no old customs that you would wish to have observed?”

This was going to be easier than he’d hoped. He let the blush rise to his cheeks, and felt it deepen honestly as he caught the sympathy in her hazel eyes. Was she determined to be a true friend to him, then? “I… yes.”

He hardly needed to feign reluctance, and waited, until she prompted: “What kind of customs, Solas?”

“It is a matter of some delicacy,” he said, flicking his gaze up to check he had her attention. “In ancient elven traditions, a bonding should be consummated physically as part of the ceremony, publically or privately.”

“Consummated… publically?!” said Lady Montilyet, shocked enough to shift her body away from him.

“Naturally,” he continued smoothly, “I should not dream of that. But privately… entirely in private, unknown to our guests. I had wondered whether, if you would be willing to assist us in the planning of the day, you might be able to ensure that the guests were made aware of some other reason why Virlath and I might retire to Skyhold’s council room for an hour. I could describe other elven ceremonies we might plausibly be carrying out.”

Josephine did not look back at him, and he observed the dull flush on her cheeks. “The war room… why there?”

“The Divine has the Inquisitor’s bedroom. The war room is closest to the nexus of Skyhold’s ancient magicks,” he said, then explained, as gently as he could: “That means… it is the easiest place to ward against sound.”

His ears and face were burning at the thought, and Josephine did not look in better state, dashing off her wine.

“Forgive me,” he said, contrite that he had mentioned it. “I should not have mentioned it to anyone.”

The Ambassador’s head turned back to him, though her body remained facing the fountain, in curving profile, gold and black. He did not wish this reminder of the charms of the female form, albeit in sturdier human frame, or to find himself in such lust for Virla. Josephine’s skin was as dark as that of the ancient slave Linarla.

“You have thought this through,” said Josephine, slowly. “That means it matters to you.”

He realised it did. “Like Virla, I have never been married before. I admit that I should like to maintain a memory of the old ways where I can.” He let his gaze roam around the courtyard. “So little of Elvhenan remains…”

Josephine’s eyes softened. “Have you discussed this with her?”

“I have not had the time,” he said, and it was not quite a lie. There had been… other matters to attend to. “Besides, I was uncertain how she might respond. I do not know what preparations she might wish to make.”

“You should tell her,” said Josephine. She sighed, and gave her glass back to his outstretched hand. “I think she might find it rather romantic, if the venue were prepared appropriately.”

He let his voice sink to a low tone. “Would you be prepared to assist with that, Lady Montilyet? For my own part, all I should require is a jug of water and a towel. Virla may find it reassuring to be able to discuss her own requirements with a female friend who can be trusted to be entirely discreet. I do not wish other men to know.”

His words had flustered the Ambassador further, and he offered the plate of meat to her to cover over his own discomfort. This was taking advantage of Josephine’s good nature… and yet, had he not done so often before?

_That doesn’t make this right._

Still, it was better to embark on this than break his word to Keeper Hawen or Sera or Leliana.

****

The flight through the Crossroads was as swift as he had promised, conscious that the world he saw in brilliant cerise and emerald glory must seem grey to his human companion. Even the ascension of Valta as a new-shaped dwarven goddess could not change that fact.

Josephine had politely refused the offer to secure herself with her arms around his waist this time, choosing instead to close her eyes and cling on to the secondary reins. Zephyr was purring with happiness. Not from the beauty of the Crossroads, which were as unwelcoming to the griffon race as they were to humans, but from the meal she’d recently consumed. She was still licking bogfisher juices from her teeth as they flew.

When he’d explained how he might best reach Josephine, Divine Victoria had asked him why he couldn’t simply point the eluvian from Skyhold so that he might directly emerge in Antiva. Presumably, she had been thinking about her own route to Val Royeaux as well, and planning how much time they might require.

“It takes great power to redirect an eluvian long distances,” he had explained. “Without an orb, or other suitable relic, I should need a day of focusing my power to achieve it. It is much easier to have it facing the Crossroads, and to reattune an eluvian in there which was previously directed to the desired location.”

Virla had been curious, as ever. “Is that what you did when you helped us against the Qunari?”

“More or less,” he had answered, then as they all narrowed their eyes at him, chuckled: “When Dorian comes here, as I assume he will, I will give a private lecture on the complex magical properties of the eluvian network.”

Indeed, if they were going to defend against the Qunari, with their powder, poisons, dreadnoughts and army of tortured, mutilated Saarebas, they were going to need every advantage, from dwarven magic to eluvians. And, as Dorian would know, the South could not afford to let Tevinter fall too quickly. Their cover story at Skyhold must be one of trade, and weddings, and peaceful politics, but the old wolf knew the world was set on war.

It all returned to Morrigan. Would she be willing to let them use the power of the Well, or take it from her?

He landed Zephyr on an outcrop marked with symbols of the Veil, two howling wolves flanking an eluvian, and helped Josephine alight, that he might lead both her and Zephyr through in turn.

“This _is_ Skyhold,” said Josephine in wonder, as they entered the courtyard garden. “It is hard to believe that we are here already!”

She had turned a flushed face up to him, and the thought crossed his mind that he had never seen Josephine so beautiful before. He ought to paint them all some time, immortalise their youth in art. Reality was cruel.

  



	18. Crossroads

Having found Baron Desjardins to greet Lady Montilyet and taken her to find Divine Victoria, then checked that Zephyr was drowsing on her perch upon the battlements, Solas was finally free to search for Virlath. The Baron had said she was not with the Divine: Most Holy was discussing the Seeker Order with Lady Pentaghast.

Solas tried the Dalish aravels next, exchanging polite greetings with Keeper Hawen and noting the carved wolf statue displayed by Master Taniel. _In pride of place, so to speak._ On its paws lay a fresh offering of embrium flowers, their bright hue echoing the sunset that bathed the Frostback peaks in shades of red and pink and orange. The sight affected him more than he cared to admit, and for a moment he felt unable to distinguish his own myth from himself. History had not been kind to Fen’Harel; yet here they were, his People: free to choose.

Once upon a time, he’d said to Virla, back when he had scarcely acknowledged she was real: _The Dalish remember fragments of fragments, but that is more than most._ The problem with history was that the Fade was real as well: history was not a single spool of thread, but a tapestry of emotions, interactions… interpretations.

For now, incongruous in Andrastian azure, it was enough to stoop and accept the crimson blooms. Aware that all eyes were upon him, Fen’Harel smiled and tucked them in his belt: a favour, for another, greater one.

None of these people owed him their lives; and yet they all did, several times over.

Still smiling, he promised Hawen to return soon with Virla and communicate his decision, but as he strode away, his heart was troubled. He ought not to be here, accepting tribute. Absent gods were well enough, if the thought of them caused followers to strive for wisdom. But living gods, immortal – how could he live on Thedas safely, when others would defer to him or scorn him, rather than accept their own responsibility for actions?

Gods ought to be chained, imprisoned, locked in the Fade, not bonded to the finest woman they had known! _Falon’Din, god of death and fortune… Dirthamen, Keeper of Secrets… Fen’Harel… melana en athim las enaste._

Pondering humility, Solas sought his love.

She was not in the rotunda, or the library, or rookery; he’d checked the battlements and stables; and she was hardly likely to be in the kitchens at this hour. He trod the steps up to the Great Hall balcony, and down again, and soon found himself outside the room her chatelain had mentioned, overlooking the garden courtyard. It was at the end, with Josephine next door to her: not his old room; a place for new beginnings.

His hand was raised to knock when he heard the sound of quiet sobbing from inside, wrenching at his heart. What had happened? He knocked, more loudly than he had planned, and called: “It’s Solas. May I enter?”

“As you will,” came a muffled voice. He pushed open the door and closed it hastily after him.

Virla was sitting at the head of the bed, her arms around her knees and her head resting on them. Around her lay a mess of different fabrics: purple silks, vermilion velvets; black lace, white cotton, teal brocade. Beside her nestled a dagger, and some sharp steel scissors; a hard cushion bristling with pins; blood glistening on a needle.

“What’s the matter?” he asked softly, his eyes darting between her and the needle.

She didn’t lift her head. Still moving quietly, he began to tidy the implements away, to give him space to sit. It would do no good to show her the rage that coursed within him at whatever – or whoever – had caused her to weep. Likely she was exhausted and overwhelmed, and any display of emotion on his part would make it worse.

The bed frame creaked with his additional weight as he drew her into his arms; he stroked her hair with the flat of his hand as she snuggled into his chest. He found himself shivering: such bodily comfort was still new to him. The harmony of their auras together was a sweet and wild lament, her sadness the cry that would start an avalanche of his own. Guilt for death of kin and Sera’s bet, his lies, his bloody hands… _No! This is **not** about **me**! _

“ _Tel’enfenim, vhenan. Dirth ma,_ ” he whispered, then added: “Or if not, at least let me sew you a handkerchief.”

She chuckled weakly, as he’d hoped she would, but there was an edge of bitterness to it. “Can **you** sew, then?”

“I taught myself, when I awoke,” he found himself saying, staring into red-rimmed violet eyes. “It would not have been in character had a solitary apostate not been able to mend the rents in his own clothes.”

Virla sighed. “The priest at Mythal’s temple would have mended them with magic, I assume?”

“The priest would not have torn his clothes,” he said, thinking back. “He never did anything so unmannerly.”

“You fucked a slave with magic, and let her think it was real,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically strained. “A strange notion of manners. I note you do not wince at my crude language.”

“I am no longer Mythal’s priest,” said Solas slowly, tracing a finger over his bare, scarred forehead. He would have liked to do the same to her, wipe the tears from her cheeks where once there had been emerald branches.

“Did you know,” began Virla, dashing away angry tears, “that as you were laying with me last night, mages in the Fade saw the Silver City pulsing, and the Fade sky patterned in rainbow colours? Apparently, it was beautiful.”

“No,” he said, resolving to consider it more fully later. “Is that… what has upset you?”

“I am not such a weakling as to cry because I can’t sew without pricking my fingers,” she said, not answering directly. “I don’t know why I’m crying! I ought to be happy! I have _you_ , we cured the Blight… why am I upset?”

“Feelings don’t always have a simple explanation,” he said, tighting his arm around her. “Do you want to talk?”

She nodded against his chest, her aura a tangle of shame, desire and love. “But that’s not the most embarrassing part! I slept in the aravel last night. I overheard them talking. Apparently, Nissa heard me making… sounds.”

His ears went hot as well. He’d thought she would sleep _here_. “Sounds of an… intimate nature?”

“Yes!” she cried. “She told Master Taniel. Nissa laughed, said you must be the Bringer of Wet Dreams, said she… well, never mind. They _know_ , Solas, they _know_ you took me in the Beyond. Creators, it’s so embarrassing.”

“Wet dreams sounds better than nightmares, _vhenan_ ,” he said, managing not to laugh. She was so _young_ , so innocent. “Is that why you have spent your day alone, rather than seeking help from others?”

Virla frowned. “I did avoid my clan. I saw Leliana this morning. That’s why I was worrying about the clothes…”

The headboard was digging into his back, and he eased a pillow up behind it. The movement made Virla jerk away from him, and she glanced from him to the door. “You should not be here! What if the Keeper…?”

He was right, she was exhausted… and he would not get her to relax while she was worried about them being caught on a bed together. “I have just spoken with the Keeper. He knows I was planning to speak with you.”

She still looked worried. “But what if I want to kiss you, and he finds us here?”

The tables were turned, it seemed. Solas remembered the flirtatious way she’d advanced on him in her bathroom yesterday morning, and his own discomfort. Perhaps they were both, in their own way, apprehensive about the forthcoming bonding. “The eluvian is downstairs; I have the key. Let’s sit in the Crossroads for a time.”

Virla frowned, as if she were going to disagree; then nodded, pushing the heavy fabrics off her legs and sliding off the bed after him. No-one was in the courtyard at this hour, so they took the fastest route, flying over the balustrade and down to the lower level. Two ravens, swift and clever.

“In that dream, why didn’t you fly through the temple?” asked Virla, elven again, as he unlocked the lower door.

“You mean my younger self?” he asked, pausing in front of the eluvian. “A philosophical standpoint. Mythal taught that magic should not be used to make things easier for oneself, that it should be used to serve others.”

They stepped into the Crossroads. Reassuring to see a smile cross Virla’s face, as she sat down with her back to one of the guardian wolves, admiring the view of trees and waterfalls and bridges, connecting rocks that floated under the drifting rainbow sky, colours mixing like oil-based paints. As pretty as a picture: both it, and her.

The wolves were no longer howling, but were staring straight ahead, eyeing up the future.

 _Not_ the moment for a lecture on how the place was shaped by his own perspective of the eluvians’ destinations.

Solas remained standing, his back to the view, uncertain of how far to pry into her feelings. “I… enjoyed last night, _vhenan_ ,” he said, conscious of what she had said about wanting to kiss him. “Particularly the final parts.”

“We can’t do it again,” she said, the smile fading away. “Not until we’re bonded. I promised Hawen I would sleep in the clan’s aravels at night. Taniel scolded Nissa, they wouldn’t tell him… but what if _he_ heard?”

“I… suppose you are right,” he said, reluctantly. He felt his cheeks grow warm, remembering the way that her clanmates had watched him take the gift of embrium. “I do not wish to embarrass you in front of your clan.”

“And I had better not leave the tower when I dream,” she said, with a sigh, “in case I meet any more spirits, and they… well. It’s only for a few nights. Still, I had hoped you might show me more of Elvhenan.”

“Not all of my memories would cause you to make sounds of an intimate nature,” he said, gently teasing her.

Virla’s face brightened. “No, I suppose not. I’m sorry, _vhenan._ Last night… you, me… it was perfect. It simply feels overwhelming, to imagine that we are so connected to the Fade, to the City, that every dreaming mage is affected by what we do… or don’t do. I was terrified today that someone would realise it was us.”

It was not so far from his own worries. He remembered the food in his satchel, and looked inside it. He and Josephine had not eaten much, and there was still half a flagon full of wine. “Did you have any dinner?”

She shook her head. “I let Desjardins think I was eating with my clan, but I never went there.”

Solas frowned, and forebore to ask about lunch. He laid the satchel beside her, open, and rinsed out the glasses in the waterfall, leaving the embrium flowers by its side. “You need to eat, _‘ma lath_ ,” he said, sitting beside her.

He thought she was going to say she was not hungry, but then she shrugged, and reached for a pheasant’s leg.

“I remember, on our way back from Adamant,” she said, after she had chased the meat down with some wine, “that you made me eat those frilly cakes in Montsimmard. They tasted like dust in my mouth.”

He smiled, picking up a small citron tart and biting into it. “These tarts are good. Spirits are terrible at baking.”

“Does this world still feel unreal to you,” she asked, selecting another piece of meat, “after so long in the Fade?”

This wasn’t meant to be about him, but if it distracted her… “At first, it felt like a continuation of the Fade: a nightmare, where the people were not truly people. To them the Veil was a heavy curtain, obscuring sight. They could walk across a battlefield and never know it; picnic in a ruin without wondering how it came to be.”

Virla gave him a look, and he shook his head slightly, continuing: “There is a virtue in being present in the moment that I never fully appreciated until I met you. I had spent my life chasing rainbows, past or future.”

She nodded, not entirely convinced, it seemed. “I still don’t understand how you can love me. I hardly know anything! I don’t know how these rocks float, or what kind of trees these are, or… or how to sew a dress!”

“Love isn’t about what you know,” he said, rubbing the crumbs off his hands before he put an arm around her shoulders. “You are wise, and brave, and beautiful. What was it you once told me that other me had said?”

She always caught on quickly; it was one of the things he loved about her. “In Redcliffe?”

“Yes. We spoke of it in a tent in the Fallow Mire. I gave you water. Something about terrible mistakes.”

“Hmm. I’ll try to recite verbatim.” She frowned in thought, and then deepened her voice, mimicking his own accent. “You would think such understanding would stop me from making such terrible mistakes. You would be wrong. But you know nothing of this world. It is far worse than you understand. Alexius served a master, the Elder One. He reigns now, unchallenged… If there is any hope, any way to save them… my life is yours.”

“That does sound like me,” he said, gazing up at the rainbow sky. “I don’t think you told me all of that, before.”

She shook her head, unseeing. “Most people thought the Maker was dead. The land was filled with demons, but Cassandra still recited the Chant. Hope burned in your eyes, when you saw me. That’s why I knew I had to change your mind. I knew you’d regret your plans for this world. If there was any hope, my life was yours.”

“Without you, the world would have burned in chaos,” he said. “And you don’t understand why I love you?”

Virla laid her left hand, palm up, on his thigh. Her voice trembled. “That wasn’t me. It was the mark on my hand. I’m nothing but the Herald, the Inquisitor… and now Mythal. I’m nothing but a vessel for her soul. A symbol!”

“Don’t think I don’t know how you feel,” he said, his voice low. “The Dread Wolf is a virgin who likes tarts.”

He had not meant it the way it sounded, but Virla choked on her wine. “You might not want to use that in your wedding speech,” she said, after she had finished coughing. “You mean the cakes, I hope.”

“You’re Virla, not a symbol,” he said, then, crossly, as she continued to giggle: “Of course I meant the cakes!”

He placed a spicy plum tart on her hand, and closed her fingers gently around it, remembering what Josephine had said: _You should tell her._ “I need to tell you something now, _vhenan_ , or I shall be making another mistake.”

His eyes traced her profile as she bit into the pastry, lingering on her reddened lips. “What is it?” she asked, leaning her head back on his shoulder so she could watch his expression. He hoped it looked sincere.

“I asked Sera how I might thank her, for rescuing me from the Fade. She wanted me to help her win a bet with Dagna, that no one would have sexual relations in the war room while Divine Victoria was here. I… agreed. Since we cannot do so until we are bonded, and Leliana leaves for Val Royeaux straight after she gives her blessing…”

“…it needs to be in between the ceremonies,” said Virla, looking down. Her aura flared with excitement.

“In private, naturally,” he said. “We can ward the room. No-one would know. I had… expected you to be upset.”

Her cheeks were burning. “I… want you, Solas. Why would I not want to have you as soon as possible?”

“But… the war council room? Where you met with your advisers?”

Virla looked at her knees. “I suppose we can take a bedroll there as easily as any other room. I was not brought up in a temple, Solas. It was normal after a bonding ceremony for the couple to head into the woods.”

“But your clan? And our guests? Do you not care what they might think?”

Her face was alight with amusement as she met his gaze. “Solas, do you really expect me to believe that you have not already worked out some appropriate cover story for what we might be doing in there?”

His eyes widened, feeling much as if he’d been caught in the act of doing something disreputable, rather than merely planning it. Virla leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek. “ _Ma serannas, vhenan…_ for reminding me that you are real as well. I’m just glad you told me first, rather than me hearing from Sera by accident!”

To cover his discomfort that he had not even thought of that – incredibly likely! – possibility, he bent forward and reached into the satchel with his left hand, to retrieve the parchment and charcoal pencil he always carried.

“Would you like me to sketch some ideas for clothes that we might wear?” he asked, and smiled as she nodded.

Her grin was infectious. “If you help me sew them. We can’t just take them from the Fade… people might talk!”

  



	19. Balance

Virla wished they could sit in the Crossroads for hours, shoulderblades touching, Solas sketching the fashions of a hundred different centuries and countries. His memory for detail was excellent, and though he had disclaimed any knowledge of Orlesian fashions once, could recreate precisely what Briala had been wearing three years ago, at Celene’s fateful Winter Palace Ball.

“She wore a steel mask,” he explained, his pencil outlining it. “Its design reminded me of vallaslin, branching over her forehead. A high-collared dress – white, cut away at the shoulders – underneath a long green tunic. A… brown leather belt, I believe, with a pale green silk belt here. The underdress was brown, embroidered…”

She smiled, watching his fingers deftly indicate the presence of decoration. “It’s not so different from what you drew from five thousand years before. I wish I could draw as well as you do.”

“The first lesson is to see what is really in front of you,” he said, letting the parchment roll up in his hands, the magic that had stiffened it fading. He glanced up at the sky. “The Crossroads… might not the best place to start.”

Virla’s eyes lingered on his profile: his long straight nose, sharp eyes, dark eyebrows; and as he turned, the cleft in his chin, his sandy freckles, the way the corners of his lips turned down. She’d forgotten half the details.

“I wish I could draw _you_ ,” she said, with a sigh. “After you left, I tried to remember how you looked. I wished I had a picture of you. A portrait, stained glass… something to remind me of your face.”

Solas stared down at her, shaking his head slightly. “I am truly sorry. I wanted you to forget me.”

“I don’t mean to keep going over the past,” said Virla, hastily. “This should be a new beginning. But I should like to learn to draw. I can’t remember much of Aratishan, but I think that there were many scrolls of drawings.”

“I often found you looking at them.” He winced, as if he had eaten something that left a sour taste in his mouth. “I do not like to think about that time. Too many streams of memory. It hurts. It’s hard to put it all together.”

“You said to Cassandra that recovering from tranquillity was easier for an ancient elf like you.”

“That does not mean that it is trivial, _vhenan._ And… it will be dark over Skyhold now.” He passed the parchment for her to take, and stood up. “Come on, or Keeper will wonder whether he should send out a search party.”

She eased herself to her feet, wincing at the way her body had cramped up while she had been sitting. The parchment reminded her of the scroll that held the Dalish bonding rules. As she took it and slid it into her belt, she replayed what he’d said. Yes, he’d definitely said _Keeper_ , not _your Keeper_.

“Keeper… not _your_ Keeper,” said Virla out loud. “Does that mean you’ve decided to accept his offer?”

He inclined his head. “I have.”

“Why?”

Solas reached out to take her hands, interlocking his fingers with her own. “You don’t object?”

“Would it matter if I did?” The hurt response had leapt out of her mouth before she could stop it, and yet she didn’t quite wish to take it back, despite the brief pained look in his eyes. He had to see how she really felt.

“Undoubtedly it would matter,” he said, gripping her fingers tightly. “Though… it might not change my mind. Would you like me to explain my reasoning first, or to make some points of your own?”

Virla stifled a yawn. “I’m tired. You go first. Maybe I won’t have any counterargument, and we can sleep.”

With a brief smile, he brought their joined hands up between them, echo of a dozen bonding ceremonies she’d seen. His eyes had no hint of the coldness she had learned to fear; indeed she could discern nothing but loving warmth. Her pulse beat faster, imagining a morning six days hence… and what would follow thereafter.

It was an effort to concentrate on what he was actually saying.

“A bonding within a clan is personal,” he said, his eyes fixed on their hands. “If I claim to be a Dalish Keeper, every clan has an interest in it. It stakes a claim, moreover, for every elf who came to me, irrespective of their background. It would change the entire fabric of Dalish culture. It would be a political gesture.”

“But don’t you want to do that? Change the Dalish, I mean. We have misunderstood so much.”

“Not when I am not forced into it. This way we shall keep the Dalish Keepers guessing. Some will say that I cannot be Fen’Harel, since when would a god accept the rule of a mortal Keeper such as Hawen?”

“You think that doubt is good for them,” she said, suddenly understanding. “It forces them to think before they act, to make up their minds at their own pace. Just as we sowed doubt within the Chantry first.”

He met her gaze, and nodded. “Do you agree, or do you have an alternative perspective?”

Virla shrugged. “If there’s anything that the last few years have taught me, it’s that you can’t control what stories people tell about you, not even with Varric trying to make the truth sound better than the lies.”

“He’s good at that,” said Solas, with a short laugh. Then he composed his face. “But that was not an answer.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she admitted. “I have been thinking about it. I cannot see how you would manage a population of the size of the army outside Skyhold as if it were a Dalish clan. Our clans were designed to move swiftly, to evade pursuit – to run, and not to fight. A survival strategy, to preserve our culture… and our race.”

“If elves had been allowed to mingle freely with the humans of Thedas, there would have been fewer elves born in each generation.” Solas looked up above her head. “Eventually, nobody would have seen the rainbow sky.”

Virla nodded. “Is there a solution?”

“Not a good one, or at least not this side of the Veil. At least with the mages free from the Circles, _they_ are no longer subject to restrictions on whom they may bond with. It is only surprising they took so long to rebel.”

“Faith is a powerful force,” she said, then shivered. “Even though you have turned my mythology on its head, I still find it disconcerting to think of Fen’Harel being… well, under me, in the hierarchy of my clan.”

“I have no objection to being… under you,” said Solas, pausing for a moment before adding: “Provided you observed the appropriate proprieties, of course.”

Her cheeks were flaming. “I am serious, Solas! How could I give you orders, knowing what I know?”

The humorous gleam faded from his eyes. “Did I ever disobey an order you gave me as Inquisitor?”

“No,” she said, thinking back. “But that was different!”

A frown crossed his face. “Not so very different. I take my commitments seriously, Virlath. I chose to enter the Inquisition, to serve its purpose.”

“As long as its purpose aligned with your own!” said Virla. “And then you spied on me.”

“In order to postpone a war I knew was coming! Would you rather I let the Qunari succeed? The Iron Bull was still being courted by the Qun. The Inquisition had other Qunari spies. I had to work in secret, even from you.”

She shook her head, too tired to argue. “That… is not why you left. Though it works well as a cover story.”

“It does… because it is true. And this is true as well: when I join your clan, then – _in that context_ – you will be senior to me. I have not yet been awake four years, and only know Dalish customs from texts, or observations from the Fade. You have twenty years’ experience of Dalish traditions, directly lived. You ought to instruct me.”

She stared at their hands, more shocked than she’d expected. “You mean this, then? It’s not expedience?”

“The people in this world are real, _vhenan._ I have chosen them, and you. I must live beside them, with you.”

He brought their hands up to his lips, and kissed each knuckle of her fingers in turn, as if in solemn promise.

Then he smirked, unlacing his fingers from her own. Virla held her breath as he brought his right hand, swirling with an aura dense as Templar velvet, down her heated cheek and round the back of her neck. She leaned into it, and found his voice whispering in her other ear, low and seductive. “Or… under you.”

His breath was hot and shallow against her neck, his left arm sliding round to pull her into him, cradled underneath his body. She let out her own breath in a slow moan, desire filling her as entirely as if he had thrust his magic deeply into her again, slow and sweet. It was shameless, this wish to be completely in his power… and incalculably dangerous. He did not have to say **_all other contexts are mine_** _,_ for her to know it. 

Maybe it wasn’t his intention, but having one context within which _she_ could set the rules…

Maybe it _was_ his intention; she wouldn’t put it past him. “Solas…” she sighed. “You win. Let’s tell Keeper.”

****

She had crawled into her bedroll, taking care not to disturb the sleeping Nissa and Taniel, while Solas was still outside with Hawen, eating hearthcakes and talking of halla. There was no ritual to join a Dalish clan: an elf’s word was enough. Time would tell whether the clan had taken on a brother, or an imposter.

It struck her for the first time, as she fell asleep, drifting into the room within the tower, that the Dalish had needed no elaborate rites, while clans were poor and lived within the margins. Healthy adult elves who sought a clan, escaping from an alienage, were welcomed as another hunter to be trained, to feed the hungry bellies of their children. Yet now, through her possession of Skyhold, her clan was rich. How many more might seek to join it? Would they need to change, to vet requests as she had done within the Inquisition?

_Given enough time, any organisation will succumb to corruption. To survive, an organization must devote resources to maintaining itself. Those resources inevitably accumulate, until the original purpose, however pure, is all but lost._

Were the Dalish, then, an organisation, its goal a re-established elven kingdom? She had never thought of them as such, but with familiar distinctions weakening, they seemed just as much an organisation as the Chantry. No overarching leader; a shared responsibility… to whom? All elves? Ought she to invite Briala to the ceremony?

Parchment and quill pen lay on her remembered desk. When Solas arrived, an hour later, knocking gently on her door – as if he could not simply will himself inside her room! – she had two lists written, orderly and careful.

One list was very short; the other list much longer. At her urging, Solas sat on the armchair. Settling herself neatly at his feet, her forearms resting on his thighs, she passed him the longer list. “This is for Summerday. Using Zephyr and the eluvians, is it possible to get all of these people to Skyhold for the Dalish ceremony?”

His eyes tracked down the list, widening slightly at some names – _Soren, Bram Kenric, Frederic of Serault_. She’d included her best guess of each person’s last location, from information she’d gleaned over the last two days. “Most of them are much closer to an eluvian than Lady Montilyet was,” he said, smiling down at her, “but it will still take time to collect them all. Are there are any that matter particularly to you? We can collect those first.”

“I should like to have Cole here,” she said, and he nodded. “We believe he is in Denerim, with Maryden. Varric. Dorian and Bull, who know that you are Fen’Harel: they patched me up and got me home. Keeper Deshanna…”

She trailed off. Solas laid a hand on hers, stroking her white knuckles. “You are not sure how she will react?”

“Soren, from my former clan, Lavellan, was in the Tirashan. I expect he will have sent her reports about how I was held captive as the mistress of Fen’Harel. We cannot expect all of the Dalish to react like Keeper Hawen.”

“No, we cannot,” he said, sliding his hand around to hold hers, comfortingly possessive. “But the more that we can persuade to question our traditions the better. So… talk with Soren first, or to Wycome to meet Deshanna?”

Virla wrinkled her nose in thought. “Deshanna, I think. If I go on my own, without you, I can bring her here to discuss it with Hawen. He is the one consenting to our bonding. It is him she would need to challenge.”

Solas nodded. “Subverting tradition, rather than questioning it. I see. What if she persuades him he is wrong?”

“A risk we have to take. Besides, if he is forced to defend his views, it will only confirm him in them.”

“It was always the problem Dalish Keepers faced,” said Solas, with a wry smile. “They are sworn to defend their clans from Fen’Harel, and yet they use my avatar to frighten away evil spirits. Hardly a consistent mythology.”

“Hawen has heard about the ancient elves. He knows I met Mythal. I think that he believes that you relented and released the Creators from their prisons. He thinks you are good, or he would not allow this bonding.”     

“From what he said to me, he believes I held the Evanuris in some enchanted kingdom in the Fade, where they might feast and frolic at their leisure, while I – their faithful hound – did the unpleasant work of finishing the Great War,” said Solas. There was a hint of bitterness in his tone. “It will serve for now. You had another list?”

She showed it to him: it read: _Briala and all elves in Val Royeaux. Blessing at the Grand Cathedral._ “I thought we did not wish political gestures,” he said, a deep frown furrowing his brow.

“Our bonding in the clan is personal,” she explained: “but the blessing from Divine Victoria is not. It is granted me as Herald of Andraste, not as Dalish First. What if it was held, not in Skyhold, but in the Grand Cathedral, part of the greater ceremony of blessings for other Orlesian couples wed on Summerday? Two elves among many.”

“You think they need more hope? A sign the Dalish are prepared to reach out beyond the old elven nobility?”

“We ought not to do less than Leliana. She means to preach on wisdom; on seeing life through others’ eyes.”

Solas’ gaze flickered sadly to the window. “The People here have only half-lives, till they wake. At least they are not fully conscious of the time that passes. Had I continued with my plans, they would be fully reunited with themselves by now. Instead, they are still spirits, and their memories remain within my mind.”

“You will save them, in the end,” said Virla, a lump in her throat. She tightened her grip on his hands. “You have not abandoned your promises to the People here. Each will get another chance at life… eventually.”

He nodded. “I visited the eggs again, on the way to find you. _Mar din eth,_ in death you are safe.”

The words made a cold shiver run down her spine. “I try not to think of this as the realm of the dead.”

“It is, and yet it is also the realm of magic. Of unconstrained imagination, free from the shackles of form.”

She looked around the room – a perfectly ordinary room, with her Inquisitor’s bed, this green velvet armchair, silver birch trees glittering outside the window. The whole place was as she wanted it to be. She looked up into Solas’ eyes, imagining a son or daughter with his features. The eggs, she knew, would take their own path.

“If we had children – in Thedas – would they be immortal? Would they be able to dream themselves here?”

His expression was pensive. “It is an interesting question, is it not? Your immortality comes from my fire in your veins: blood taken from the wellspring of Creation, that counteracts the entropic nature of the post-Veil Earth. If not for your long exposure to the Mark, you could not have absorbed it from the ritual wine you drank.”

“That is not an answer,” said Virla with a sigh, laying her head on his thighs. “The dragon children are born both sides of the Veil, so they are elvhen. But in elven form we sleep or wake; there is no in-between.”

Solas stroked her hair. “It is not impossible that some might be immortal. If they were conceived, for example, in a place with a Veil so thin that it was practically non-existent. Such places are invariably dangerous.”

“Not Skyhold, therefore,” said Virla. “The Veil there is extremely old and strong. It is settled, then. I must prepare some contraception. The thought that you should endure the pain of seeing your own children age…”

His hand fisted in her braids. “You are wise, _vhenan._ Though… age itself is not the hardest part. It is the knowledge that they must pass through my Veil, to be constrained by me to virtue or to vice. The virtuous may wake again.”

She tipped her head up. His eyes were filled with tears. “Will that happen to my clan? Our mortal children?”

“ _Our_ clan,” he said, squaring his shoulders as if for battle. “We must help them prevail against the tide.”

  



	20. Discretion

Solas looked through the prism of Virlath’s eyes, bright windows to her soul. Now was the moment; she was as ready as she ever would be. He owed it to her not to put it off, however much he longed to.

“The tide? That sounds… almost Qunari.” Her voice was soft, making it a comment rather than a question.

His thumb caressed her cheek. “You read the fresco runes. What do you imagine I could show you?”

“A test?” She frowned in thought. “I suppose I should have expected that.”

“I am not doing this to hurt you.” He drew his hand away, noting that it trembled. So many centuries he’d told himself he could not, should not, share this burden. _I am afraid_ , he thought. _Is it wisdom to deny it?_

“Why, then?”

It was already beginning to feel cold. He hugged his arms around him. “I must know what you expect to see, lest I forget any essential element of preparation. Perceptions shape existence… and its absence.”

“You are talking of the Void.”

He nodded. All around, the darkness turned and listened. “What do you know of it?”

“Sophiyel,” she said, as if his friend’s name were a prayer. Icy grief hardened in his bones. “You said there were stirrings of energy in the Void, in a place in the Fade where your friend used to be.”

It hurt to think of that. He hadn’t yet gone back; he hadn’t dared. “What else?”

“It’s like a puzzle where the pieces never fit. You said Sophiyel went to the Void to weaken the Nightmare. Andruil went to the Void to fight the Forgotten Ones, and came back maddened. The Void makes things forget.”

“That is correct. It is entropy made manifest, in opposition to creation.”

“Oh!” said Virla, shifting on the floor to sit directly in front of him, pupil to his teacher. “Is Josephus right, then?”

“You are thinking of his treatise _The Four Schools of Magic,_ which I recall was in the Skyhold library?”

She smiled. “Yes, _hahren_ ,” she said, feigning docility.

It was like a lightning barrage to the heart, the way she looked up at him, through fluttering auburn eyelashes, with that sweet tilt to her head, that adoring expression. Intoxicating, when sobriety was essential.

“Josephus was half-right,” said Solas, stifling his feelings. “Creative and entropic magic are intrinsically opposed to each other. Do you remember how he termed the other so-called Schools?”

“As Schools of Energy,” said Virla promptly. “Primal – fire, ice and lightning – and Spirit, the magic that lies outside nature, direct manipulation of mana or summoning of spirits.”

“The blade you fight with – does the magic belong to the Primal or the Spirit School?”

He watched as she stared down at her hand, imagining the sword that sprang from it. Her fingers were small and delicate, with neatly filed pink fingernails. A drunk man would want them on his…“Spirit,” she said.

“The ancient _Dirth’ena Enasalin_ would have disagreed,” said Solas, shivering. _Back. I want them on my back._ “They considered it physical magic, akin to fire or ice – seen, not unseen. Indeed there is no n… neat categorisation of spells into these Schools, no clear separation between them, which is a point that the esteemed First Enchanter goes to great pains to obscure. B… barriers are as visible as rock armour.”

“The rocks _look_ real though,” said Virla, biting her lip. “Josephus was trying to help Templars understand magic.”

“I had not seen it that way,” he said, his eyes lingering on her lips, redder where she'd bitten them.

“Outside of the Circles, most people had no experience of magic. Rocks were familiar. Spirit blades were not.”

If he kept his eyes on her, he couldn’t feel the darkness closing in, the presence of the Void around them. It was such a fragile thing, their love: her spirit lit this realm; without it, everything would crumble into darkness.

“B… before the Veil,” he said, cursing himself for stuttering, “a spirit blade or shield was as common a sight as ice or fire. All m… magic was synonymous with energy, and all b… beings could draw on it.”

He was still shivering, and she looked up at him curiously. “Are you all right, Solas?”

“I am fine,” he said with a sigh. “It is simply that you are so very beautiful.”

She flushed, as if his meagre compliment had overcome her. “I’m sorry, _vhenan,_ that you… um, that we… we cannot… oh dear. I should not have agreed to sleep in the aravels.”

“No!” he said. “Don’t think that. Of c… course I want that, _‘ma lath._ But love is not restricted to such activities.”

“I suppose you are right,” she said, looking at her hands. Her face was scarlet. “I… um, well. Never mind.”

“You are beautiful in b… body and in spirit,” he said, as gently as he could. “I d… do enjoy talking with you.”

Virla ventured to look up. Her expression was full of concern. “You are shivering, _vhenan –_ are you cold?”

He nodded. “For m… me, the V… Void is never far away.”

Had she not cared as much for him, he thought she might have shrank back from him at that point, rather than kneeling up, concern turning to terror in her eyes, to hold his arms with her hands, one above each elbow. He felt angular, disjointed, chilled… unable to relax into her love.

“Why does it make you feel cold, the thought of it?” she asked, pressing her hands into his arms as if she could will him warm. Perhaps she could, at that: he felt a little warmer, with her aura near.

Solas took a deep breath. “Because I ought to show you where my duty lies.”

“Your duty?” she echoed, her forehead creasing in puzzlement. “But I thought we had… cured the Blight.”

“The Blight sprang out of the Void, but the Blight is not the Void. We have not cured m… mortality.”

“Entropic spells are all related to death… at least according to Josephus. They drain energy or life, or paralyze.” Her voice trailed off, then resumed, soft and sad: “Or… they make enemies sleep, or trap them in a nightmare.”

“The Veil is an entropic spell,” he confirmed. “It caused the Titans to sleep, and all those who have b… bodies made of earth grow old. Spirits have no bodies, so they do not age, regardless of which side of the Veil they reside.”

“Why do we find it difficult to cross the Veil while living, but our spirits do on death?”

“Bodies are complex… as you know from your experience of shapeshifting. Just as water cannot flow uphill, matter is constrained by wells of energy. On d… death, a mortal’s spirit separates from its body. It tangles in the Veil, disturbing the harmonic frequencies.” He paused. “If you l… like, I could teach you to p… perceive it.”

Virla clutched at his arms. “Are you saying you can _hear_ the souls of the dead?”

“And see, when I am close enough,” he said, feeling that same familiar pride in her curiosity and valor. _She didn’t flinch._ Then her fingers tightened further, and he yelped. “ _Vhenan,_ you are hurting my arms!”

“Oh… sorry,” she said, letting go of him. She rocked back on her heels, clearly thinking it through.

He waited, surreptitiously rubbing his arms where she had pinched him. Maybe she had been trying to wake up, to wake him up… not consciously, but as some kind of instinctive, physical reaction. Her warmth persisted.

“The Veil is a magical vibration that repels the Fade,” she said, staring at his feet. He noticed for the first time that they had both chosen to wear Dalish robes. His feet were pale beneath the bindings; pallid and corpse-like.

“A multidimensional magical vibration, yes,” he said, flexing his toes as if the movements could improve their circulation and their colour here. It seemed to help her when he treated this as if it were a realm of matter.

Virla frowned, raising silver-violet eyes to his. “A Song of Faith, a Chant of Light? How does the Veil keep going? When I cast a fire mine, or a wall of fire, it lasts less than a minute. Where does it get its energy from?”

“Primarily from me, while I sleep,” he said. “The artefacts we re-energized assist while I am awake.”

Her eyes widened. “Like Ameridan, keeping the Avvar-dragon from Orlais?”

Solas sighed. “You realised he was elvhen, I assume?”

“I realised he’d survived eight hundred years, and deduced he must be. He had… Dirthamen’s vallaslin. He said he wanted to join his lover Telana at Andraste’s side. She was a Dreamer too.”

It hurt to think of them as well. “Yes, I know.”

“What happened to him, when he died? No, wait, I don’t want to get distracted. How does the Veil get its energy from you?”

“If you build a wall of stones, you don’t need to build it up again each day,” he said. “Gravity holds each stone in place, and unless there is an earthquake, you only have to deal with the rams and varghests.”

“The rams and varghests being spirits, pressing on the Veil from one side or the other?”

For someone with as little formal training as she’d had, she was remarkably quick to absorb this. “Exactly.”

“And that is why you spend so much time in ruins and battlefields,” she said, as if she was recounting something she’d realised long ago. “Those are the places where the Veil is thin. You were repairing it!”

“I… was trying to, at least. Rifts in the Veil are dangerous, for spirits and mortals. Removing the whole Veil at once would have made the world a paradise again for spirits… and a hell for mortals.”

“Yet you considered it,” she said, frowning.

“I thought there was no other way to defeat the Nightmare,” he said, wishing he could erase the hurt in her eyes. “Without the Veil, I could have casually reshaped the world, deleted all the demons, started afresh.”

“Gods do not lose gracefully,” said Virla, glaring at him. “You would have tipped the whole board over!”

“I was very tired of losing,” he admitted. “It is still h… hard to believe we have won.”

She was quiet for a few minutes, staring into the distance. He had almost decided to change the subject entirely, offer to teach her to draw perhaps – since chess was out of the question – when her eyes narrowed.

“Your duty, Solas,” she said, no longer angry, but insistent. “You hold people’s souls when they die. How can you, when there are so many people? I found that very hard to believe. I thought it must be metaphor.”

“Fen’Harel feasting on the souls of the dead? I wish it were, _vhenan_.”

“But how?”

“The Fade is an ocean, and the Veil the tide. Where souls are small, like those of young children, they slip through easily, spirits to the Fade, and are quickly pulled into this City… safe, and cared for by those here.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “That… is more comforting than I had expected. Thank you, Solas.”

He nodded, knowing it would have reassured her. “It is why I hate to see a frightened child. Even when I thought of mortals as inferior, as lesser beings, cut off from the Fade, I instructed my agents to assist all children.”

“The tale of the slow arrow is not apocryphal, then?”

“The beast killing the adults, and Fen’Harel saving the children?” He sighed. “I told you your gods were cruel.”

Her eyes were desperately sad, but at that she drew closer to him. “You did it to save your people.”

He shook his head. Having started this, he had to tell it all. “The demons don’t remember they were mortal.”

“So, larger souls, like those of adults like myself – or Hawen, or Cassandra – do they get… stuck?”

“Not all of them. The stronger spirits fight against the tide, lodging in the Veil. For those who are pure, they may pass through, preserving their strength in their greatest virtue – command, or wisdom, or faith, as it may be.”

“So Cassandra, when she dies, might become a spirit of faith, like in her vigil? Cole said it _was_ her.”

“Yes,” he said, at last daring to reach out to clasp her hand. “And we might use an egg, some day, to bring her immortality, in this Silver City, with us here. If Valta wills, we can access her memories, from lyrium vaults.”

“Cassandra’s memories are… stored in lyrium?”

“That is what a Shaper is for, _vhenan._ The part of me that lay underground watched everything. Now Valta has that task… your twin, if you should wish to see it so. She is content, immortal. This is what she trained for.”

Virla looked perplexed. “I think I will need to consider that further…” she said faintly. “What of the others?”

“For those with weakness of purpose, unbalanced, with admixture of essences, they need to w… wait for me. Time does not pass for them. Spirits lead a peaceful semi-existence, as I once told you before. Except where there are many d… deaths at once and the Veil might tear, I do not need to locate these souls immediately.”

“And when you do?”

The chill had settled in his bones again. “It w… would be easiest to show you. You saw the Void once before.”

“When we fought the Nightmare,” she said, shivering. “A sun-bright, deafening chaos, swarming with demons.”

“The sun that burnt the earth with magic, that made the earth forget. The sun Elgar’nan buried in the earth.”

“Yes! A dark sun. At first it was a blinding light, before it turned to black. Not a normal black. Gleaming, glowing. And then it transformed into the Nightmare demon, or the Nightmare grew out of it. It's hard to remember.”

“If you are willing, I would like to show you a memory,” he said, gesturing at a stretch of blank stone wall with his free hand. The other tightened around hers. “Of nobody you know. We will not enter it. We’ll simply watch.”

“I will try to be brave,” she said, and he felt his heart lurch. _What am I doing, exposing her to this?_

“Please t… tell me if you wish me to stop. I would not wish your clan to fear I trapped you in a nightmare,” he said, his teeth chattering again. “You m… may find this unsettling, even given all you’ve seen.”

“More unsettling than seeing you erase your friend Sophiyel? Or reading those veilfire runes, alone, believing you were dead?” She turned his hand over, and pressed a kiss on the palm. “But… I appreciate your concern.”

Her faith was stronger than he deserved, her love a beacon. He knew that if he walked to look out from the window, the City’s shining walls would retain no trace of black. Wordlessly, he encouraged her to curl up in his lap, protected by his essence… warming him, protecting him in turn. _Mythal, Great Protector, bless me._

The stone wall flickered into life, as if a further room were visible beyond its reach, and radiating cold.

And in that room, a tall elf knelt, and whispered to a warrior. The man’s corpse lay beyond the Veil; this was in the Fade. He could only guess how she perceived it; but to him the Void was tongues of ashy flame, burning all impurities away – all rage, despair and fear; all wisdom, love and justice – to leave a simple shell of Valor.

The Spirit of Valor strode away, and the Dread Wolf watched him leave.

The stone wall flickered still again, and Solas cradled Virla. “You guided him to death,” she said, her face a mask.

“I helped him,” said Solas. “Had I left him, eventually the Veil would have ground his soul away to nothing.”

Virla stared into his eyes, and he watched the burden settle on her, like a dark black cloud. Yet, as he had known it would, her Will prevailed. Love shone through, like white light blazing with purpose, banishing a nightmare.

“I chose this,” she said, her voice trembling. He held her close. “The Veil. Teach me how to… share your duty.”

  



	21. Sand

Virla knelt down to check the witherstalk growing in the courtyard garden. Tomorrow she would take fresh sap to make a tincture she could drink, ahead of Summerday. The fact that children might be possible, some day, was… freeing, like escaping from a prison that she’d never realised she was in. Her head was spinning, light.

Those images in veilfire, those runes laboriously and secretly translated over many months, had told her what she might expect in marrying the god of death. Hers had been no ignorant pilgrimage; last night had been a consecration. It had granted her a secret of the realm, an insight of this sundered world.

_Bellanaris din’anshiral, apprenticed to the Keeper of the Dead forever._

With a cold shiver, Virla eased herself up. She didn’t want Keeper to see her inspecting the witherstalk. He’d be here soon for his first visit to the Crossroads. Guided by Solas, naturally, who'd promised to accompany her afterwards through the far mirror, set her on the road to Wycome, before returning to pursue arrangements here.

The black mare Bua, calmest in the stables – and, unlike Mi’nan, capable of fitting through the Great Hall courtyard doors – nibbled at the grass. With her she could reach Deshanna, return within the day.

It was hard to focus on the wedding preparations. She sat down on the low stone wall to think, staring at the early morning sky: unseeing; disconnected; remembering what he’d said, and what he hadn’t.

Four things could happen now to the spirits of the dead: they flew directly to the Silver City; or became entangled in the Veil for him to purify; or, for those too weak to sustain purpose, faltered into wisps or wraiths of what they were. Or, though he assured her it was rare, a mortal’s spirit corrupted directly into a demon. _Remember the mage corpse we saw in the Fade,_ he’d said. _So obsessed with rage that there was nothing else._

He’d said the spirits they met in the Fade were either directly created by him in his role as Falon’Din, or formed from the energy of the Void, reflections of the world observed through sleeping dreamers. Conversely, for a child to be conceived within its mother’s womb, it needed to pull at least a wisp of energy from the Fade, a spark of life. _Each child born has a soul that was previously a spirit._ That’s what the runes had said. A babe capable of attracting a spirit became a mage. _The strongest spirits become Dreamers like ourselves._

The Veil meant no-one remembered who they were. And with the Fade repelled from the Earth, there were fewer spirits of the rocks and ash. Thus the dwarven population dwindled. Their Stone sense made more… sense, now: they were a part of it, just as the Dalish were connected to the forests and the trees. Hard not to wonder what spirit _she’d_ attracted. His concern the Anchor had affected her spirit made more sense now too.

 _If it had, do you really think I’d have noticed?_ / _You show a wisdom I have not seen since… a rare and marvellous spirit… you are unique._ / _If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours, have I misjudged them?_

So… dared she ask him what he knew?

****

Keeper Hawen’s wonder at the Crossroads was as great as her own. Perhaps she had misjudged the Dalish too? Solas handled him with care, sharing only the information that would help him come to terms with such a sight.

Virla stood at the near end of the bridge with Bua, one hand stroking the horse’s neck, the other tangled in the reins, unable to draw her eyes away from… Fen’Harel… walking beside their Keeper, back towards the Skyhold eluvian, exchanging polite reassurances. One day, he was letting her infer, he would enfold the old man’s spirit in such gentleness, on death. Her childhood faith in Dirthamen’s wise eyes seemed not so very wrong now.

Fen’Harel was no monster, but a wolf who saw all, knew all. Practical, intelligent and…

 _They were gone._ The mirror locked dull and red behind them, and…

The flashback was all the more terrifying for coming without warning. She saw the Great Eluvian again, the kiss as Solas burnt her arm away, the horror as he left: _molten veil-sand shimmer gone_.

Her arm felt heavy. The eluvian dripped blood. Virla clutched at Bua’s reins, unable to look away. The mare whinnied in surprise, her head pulled sideways, and Virla slackened her grasp, thankful for her steed’s natural placidity.

_What if she’d died, back then?_

Would he have burnt her spirit with the Void? Reduced her to a cipher like Sophiyel? Genderless, amnesiac…

Virla shrieked. As if this place were not enough, with bridges over endless drops, and colours only elves could see… those two stone wolves had turned their heads to _look_ at her. And then, in awful synchronicity, they lifted up their heads and howled. Drowning in existential vertigo, she heard them voice her inner screams.

As if it had been a signal, a second later, Solas leapt back through the mirror. A falcon flying to her side, an elf. Tall and strong, he crushed her in his arms, cradling her head with one firm hand against the soft woollen nap of his robes, moss-green. Virla felt faint. _How could he have borne it? How could he still care?_

“ _Vhenan,_ ” he said, his voice a thousand years of anguish. “Whatever it is, please let me help you!”

“Flashback,” she said, muffled into his chest. “From when… you took… my arm. I need… to breathe.”

“Take all the time you need, my dear,” he said, relaxing his hold. “We do not need to leave immediately.”

Virla gulped down air, forcing her breaths to come more slowly and more deeply. _He is here. He’s here._ She focused on Bua’s jet black mane, glazed-eyed, until she felt her heart-rate slow. Finally, she raised her eyes to his. He looked terribly worried. She glanced away, and shuddered to see the stone wolves frozen in mid-howl.

“You said… the eluvian near Wycome was in… an abandoned thaig,” she ventured. “Safe to talk there?”

Solas closed his eyes, reaching inward to sense beyond their target mirror. After a few seconds, he nodded. “There may be a few giant spiders to clear out. Otherwise, we should be undisturbed.”

She let him take her hand, and Bua’s reins in his other, and began to cross the impossible landscape with him.

“ _Ma s… serannas_ ,” she said, as they crossed to the fourth and final floating island. This one had no wolves.

He nodded in grim acknowledgement, and gripped her hand more tightly as they passed through the eluvian. There were indeed spiders, and a pack of deepstalkers. She didn’t even need to raise a spell; he incinerated them all without looking, and sealed a ruined passage to the Deep Roads: a blink to raise a two-ton boulder. If it had been meant to impress her, it would have worked. But hardly reassuring. He continued escorting them in silence, through halls into a cavern, then towards a light that looked like daylight, and… a salt tang to the air?

She sniffed at it hopefully. “Is that the sea I smell?”

“The Amaranthine Ocean,” he replied, echoing her sudden smile with a small one of his own. “I remember you grew up beside it. How long since you sat and watched the ocean from a beach, _vhenan_?”

“Since before the Conclave,” said Virla, thankful to have a question she could easily answer. “So it feels like several lifetimes ago. I’ve been in Denerim a few times, but you couldn’t call the harbour there a beach.”

Sure enough, they were soon standing on a broad expanse of pristine golden sand dotted with rocks and palm trees. The sun shone bright, blinding on blue water, and Virla lifted a grateful face to the breeze.

“This is… what I remembered,” she said, longing to slip her boots off and feel the sand between her toes.

“We’re in between two branches of the Minanter delta. That path leads to Wycome: half-an-hour’s ride,” said Solas, pointing towards the south. He looked away, his voice carefully neutral: “Did you have any breakfast?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t hungry. There’s food in Bua’s saddlebags.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “Shall we make for that large boulder over there, and eat while we talk?”

This was ridiculous. Breakfast with Falon’Din – and Fen’Harel, and Dirthamen, and what was left of Elgar’nan, and Solas the apostate, all in one tall elf – upon a **beach**? The clan used to dive and swim in places like these.

She began to laugh, halfway between fury and hysteria. “How can you be so **normal**?”

Solas snorted, a deep rumble of laughter. “As easily as you, _vhenan._ ”

“I mean it, Solas!” she cried, sitting down heavily on the rock, giving in and taking off her boots. “How could you have managed the year you spent with us – with _me_ – in the Inquisition, to fool us all, stay sane?”

“I am relieved to hear you imply that I am sane,” he said, then frowned, and sat down next to her.

The boulder forced them close. His proximity was deafening, his aura rippling with the echoes of the power recently expended. She wasn’t going to admit her anger could be equally well termed _passion_.

He seemed to recognise it anyway, for he slipped his arm around her, pressing a fleeting kiss upon her forehead.

“I was not thinking in terms of _fooling_ anybody,” he said. “It was simply not wise to reveal too much.”

Virla thought of Hawen, Cassandra… Cole! Her toes curled into warm sand. “But how could you bear it?”

“Because of you,” he said, then as she shook her head in doubt, insisted: “You gave me hope my purpose would not be in vain, that something might be salvaged. You _cared_ about the people that we met, Virlath.”

She sighed, and turned her face into his chest, murmuring: “What does that matter, if they will all die?”

“It matters a great deal, _vhenan_ ,” said Solas. His voice was now entirely serious. “Remember. Think. Why else would I have troubled to stop the Qunari, if not that a few years’ peace was something to be valued?”

He was right; she knew that he was right. “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching arms around to hug him back. “You’re right, of course. But… how do you learn to look at them and not see their mortality?”

“I don’t know,” he said, almost inaudibly. “I know that every time I looked at you, I feared I would corrupt you. It is the burden that I mentioned. The burden my pride would not have let you share… _din’anshiral._ ”  

“I could not bear for you to be alone,” she said, and he nodded.

They sat for a minute, locked in an embrace, listening to the steady roll of waves that crashed along the ocean shore. She was thankful he made no attempt to move, or speak, or remind her to eat.

Gulls flew across the white peaks of the waves. Somewhere to the south was Wycome, allied to Kirkwall through Varric and Deshanna’s efforts. Vivienne had been born there. Virla gathered her scattered thoughts.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” she began, “but I don’t know if you’ll feel you ought to tell me or not. Maybe you don’t know anyway. But if you do, I'll understand if you don’t want to tell me yet.”

Solas’ voice was gentle. “Ask, _vhenan_ , and I will answer if I can.”

She bit her lip. “Right. If I had… died, after Corypheus was defeated, what would have happened to my spirit?”

“A good question.” He passed her a flask of water. “Not, however, one I can now answer. In the Fade I see what is in front of me – the balance at a given time. Only the Veil allows me to perceive an integrated sum of all the virtues, balanced over time. It is not uniformly weighted: the acts of a child weigh less than those of an adult. It is inconceivable to me that you would have been a demon. Whether you would have been wisdom, hope, love or faith, fought in… to the Eternal City… or been caught up in the Veil for me to sift, I cannot tell you for certain.”

Virla listened intently, watching a gull buffeted by winds above the waves. “Is it just acts that count?”

“No, causes matter too. Those who act upon their virtues strengthen their purpose. Such as you do.”

“It is a terrifying thought, that we can corrupt the spirit in us.”

“Not _in_ you. That spirit is you, inseparable. It is only because you are strong that you may bear Mythal. I did misjudge the Dalish, _‘ma ar’lath_. Through many generations they nurtured their blood carefully, twining their spirits with those of the forests where they dwelled. The land never forgot, _vhenan…_ it never forgot.”

He was speaking in riddles, but the grim look had vanished entirely. “What are you talking about, Solas?”

“Your spirit is the spirit of Arlathan,” he said. She managed to place the expression on his face as… awe?

“I have the spirit of… a city?” she asked, bewildered. “How is that possible?”

Solas chuckled. “Not a city, Virlath. A forest. You have the spirit of a mighty forest, tree and river and bird and animal combined. What this world generated for itself, before the Titans’ Fade existed. The original _vhenadahl._ ”

“But the Forest of Arlathan is to the north! My clan never went there. You said the moment of conception…”

Regret darkened his expression. “Arlathan Forest once covered the entire continent. Before the Blights, before the Imperium, before the Veil… it reached from sea to sea, Vyrantium to Val Firmin. Now it is but a shadow of itself.”

“A shadow… spirit… that I have? Or that is me?”

“The Fade remembers a time when Arlathan was all. Before cities, temples… dragons, giants… the spirits played around the trees. Before I took their world.” Solas paused, suppressing his sadness, and touched her face with a gentle hand, brushing along each cheekbone. “But still some hope remains for restoration.”

Virla caught his hand. His fingers had traced the old lines of her vallaslin, the branches of the tree for Mythal.

“Was Mythal connected to the forest too?” He nodded, encouragingly, and she continued. “Of all the many things you have told me, this is one of the strangest. I don’t feel like a forest. I don’t have any leaves!”

“Close your eyes,” said Solas, and he pressed the softest of kisses on her lips. There was something there – a soft susurration, a hint of birdsong, and something else: an old, old predator with fire and light.

She leaned back, frightened of being burned again. “That felt like… an ancient memory?”

“I keep some secrets older than the elf I told you of,” he said. “ _Tel’enfenim,_ _‘ma lath_. I learnt my lesson.”

Virla gave her head a small shake, feeling slightly faint. “I missed the trees in Skyhold,” she said, trying to imagine being a forest. “Could we plant trees in blighted lands – the Western Approach? The Silent Plains?”

Solas smiled. “A good idea. Although there are a few matters first we must attend to.”

She sighed. “The Qunari threat. The slaves held captive in Tevinter. Helping souls caught in the Veil.”

“Actually,” said Solas, unwrapping the bread and dried salt pork she’d brought, and handing a piece of each to her. “I was thinking of breakfast, and our wedding. Do you wish me to come with you to Wycome?”

The salt pork tasted surprisingly good. She washed the mouthfuls down with the flask of water he passed her, remembering the many times they’d breakfasted in camp together, staring into the embers of a campfire.

“No,” she said, after thinking for a while. “I have my sending crystal back, and you still have the one they gave you. If there is any difficulty, I can use it. I do not wish you to feel as if you must always look after me.”

Solas stood up. “I should enjoy your company if you wished it, but I think you are wise in preferring to meet with Keeper Deshanna on your own. I will talk with Josephine as discussed. _Dareth shiral, vhenan_.”

“Before you go,” said Virla, also scrambling to her feet, “please would you kiss me again? Me, not Arlathan.”

“You remind me of everything that is good in the world,” he said, taking her hands in his. Even with his back to the sun, she could see the faint blush on his cheeks. “It is I who should be asking if I might kiss you. Or… dance?”

At her look of pleased surprise, he slipped a hand behind her waist, and began to hum a tune, the melody from the time they’d danced at Celene’s ball. She found herself waltzing with him on the sands, in perfect rhythm, responding to his body and his aura. Slowly he increased the pace until they were pirouetting, light-footed and dizzy with joy. It did as much to reassure her of his love for her as the final gentle kiss he pressed on her lips.

“It is settled, then,” he said, smiling as he drew back. “I will ensure Josephine remembers to include dancing.”

  



	22. Limestone

A haze of smoke rose above the next low headland, indicating the broad valley where Wycome lay. Virla spurred Bua on along the cliff path. Time to seek out Deshanna and the rest of her former clan. Craftsmaster Uthanil, perhaps; the sister mages Miri and Noranni, the clan’s First and Second; hunters and elders and children.

It had been a subdued reunion at the last Arlathvhen, two years since. Aware that everything she did was closely watched by every elf around, including her Dalish Inquisition agents, she’d been even more guarded than usual, as polite and quiet as Solas himself. Lack of vallaslin hadn’t helped. Nor had the knowledge she’d kissed Fen’Harel, met Mythal; nor the nightmares of Valta and the Wellspring in the Deep Roads; nor the recent news that Bull had killed Gaspard, her Inquisition troops triumphant with Celene’s. Her mind had been in dozens of places at once; her body drooping with fatigue.

Her clan had expressed necessary gratitude to the Inquisitor. Gratitude for the timely arrival of the Inquisition’s troops, flying the Inquisition banner over Wycome; and for the Inquisition diplomat Lady Volant, who’d talked the Marcher nobles down with evidence of Corypheus’ unholy interventions: red lyrium in the city wells.

Calpernia had ordered that, and refused to kill Erasthenes, and she herself had told the Archon of Tevinter to appoint her as his heir. Virla shivered. The South needed a strong Tevinter to defend against the Qun, but still…

Perhaps she ought to have come here sooner.

****

As she approached the northern gate, the huge walls dwarfed the blackened trees around. They’d been built deliberately high. Wycome had been reduced to ashes by the darkspawn in the Fourth Blight, its people saved by Warden mages enchanting makeshift aravels for flight. Perhaps that was why the city had a long history of good relations between elves and humans, at least until the late and unlamented Duke Antoine – they remembered their ancestors owed their lives to elven Wardens Garahel and Isseya. Here there would be no buildings predating the Exalted Age: no Tevinter architecture like Kirkwall; no marble palaces like Starkhaven.

 _Never again,_ these great walls seemed to say, _never again let us be so defenceless._ And the Veil was strong here, just as it had been in Skyhold. The events of the Fourth Blight had affected buildings, not people; and their walls had protected them thereafter, and throughout the most recent horrors too.

Less than four days ago, this city had been besieged. All around the outside of the walls lay evidence of the weeks of fighting: the deep gouges and scorchmarks on the ground; the crimson scratches where red lyrium flails had assailed the creamy stone; the heaps of dust that marked the wraiths’ demise.  

The guards at the gate did not need to know her: she was dressed to pass for the servant of an Ansburg lord, in Marcher riding gear both neat and nondescript, and Bua was a well-bred mare. _I bring a message for the Dalish Keeper Deshanna,_ she said, and was directed towards the old high quarter, and the former ducal palace. She’d brought a map from the library in Skyhold, but it wouldn’t be needed. The Keep was visible already, as sturdy as the outer walls and built from the same pale limestone blocks. A Wycome banner flew proudly above it.

Virla kept riding through the market stalls, past taverns and homes. She carried no mage’s staff, and hid her hair under a helmet: she wasn’t here to be conspicuous, or to make a grand entrance. Indeed, nothing in Wycome matched the grandeur of its outer walls or Keep – except perhaps the harbour glimpsed down narrow streets.

The relief of the siege’s miraculous ending showed in the faces of everyone she passed, as if they had been saved from the abyss directly by the Maker. Candles were lit around the feet of Andraste, pools of wax and fire, with children set to guard them and re-light them if they were blown out. Her way would not lead her past Wycome’s alienage, but Virla could imagine bright flowers strewn or ribbons decked around the vhenadahl…

_Tel’enara bellana bana’vhenadahl, sethen’a ir san’shiral, mala tel’halani, ir sa’vir te’suledin var bana’vallaslin…_

She was still lost in introspection as they rounded the corner into the square in front of the Keep.

A dark-haired man ran up and tugged on Bua’s bridle. “What’s that?” he yelled, pointing up into the sky.

At the same time a woman screamed, and Virla shook herself out of her daydreams. With her sharp elven vision she could easily make out the flying creature overhead. A pure black griffon – but who was riding it?

“Maybe it’s a griffon,” she said, smiling down at the man. “Look, it’s coming closer. Two riders.”

He shook his head, bemused, still staring at the sky, and Virla bit back a chuckle. It was Hawke on the griffon – Garrett Hawke himself, waving down at the people gathering, sitting behind a young woman she didn’t know.

The square could be made empty enough for the griffon to land, but only if the crowd assisted.

So much for being inconspicuous. Virla disentangled the staring man’s hand from the bridle and rode forward.

“Move back!” she cried, urging the men and women and cheering children back towards the walls. “Make way for the Champion of Kirkwall. Griffons need space to land!”

The creature’s name acted like a charm, as it always would have done in Wycome. The female rider’s hood fell back as Hawke helped her dismount, showing elven ears and hair securely tied back in a bun. Young, though: she might not even be Virla’s age. She stayed guarding her griffon, casting an uncertain smile at Virla as Hawke walked across the cracked stone paving of the square. Everyone was watching them – the rider on the horse, the Champion of Kirkwall, the young elven woman and the beast of legend.

Hawke wasn’t smiling either, now – his face was calm, but his gaze was cold and stern.

“You look just like her,” he said, staring up into her face, speaking quietly enough that no-one else could hear him. “Except – you have two arms. The real Inquisitor lost hers.”

The implication was like a dagger to her heart. “I am Virla. Solas helped me heal my arm, return it from the Fade. If I were what you fear, this wouldn’t be the best location to challenge me. Innocent people might get hurt.”

“Is that a threat?” said Hawke, and she shook her head, trying to look as normal as she could with two arms. “But you are right, this is no conversation to have in the open. Were you heading into or away from the Keep?”

Most of the people around them were staring at the griffon, or trying to prevent their children from running back towards it. But some would be listening – and she hadn’t been recognised yet.

“I also have a message for Keeper Deshanna,” she said, more loudly. “Shall we go together?”

She dismounted, holding Bua by the reins, and walked across with Hawke to greet the other elf.

“This is Warden-Recruit Valya,” said Hawke, in one-sided introduction. “She was in the Hossberg Circle before Weisshaupt took them in. We can’t speak here. Let’s get the mounts stabled then talk inside the Keep.”

“I’m not sure Revas will take kindly to being left with strangers,” said Valya. “I’d probably better stay with her.”

Virla bit back her first response. She’d named her after Warden Isseya’s griffon! But… she only knew that because Caritas had let her glimpse a part of Valya’s world, the diary the woman had found in Weisshaupt. If she even hinted that she knew of that, it would only confirm Hawke’s suspicion that she was a demon.

“An interesting name for a griffon – freedom,” she said instead, feigning a lightness she didn’t feel. More quietly, she added to them both: “We saw Zephyr at Skyhold. Caronel and Cassandra got there safely.”

Valya smiled, and looked as if she would have replied, but Hawke was already striding off towards the stables at the side of the Keep. It was easy enough for Virla to lead Bua, with her placid temperament; and Valya’s bond with Revas – or, perhaps, the lure of food and water – was sufficient to persuade her to walk on huge clawed feet across the square, watched by an ever-growing crowd.

The stablehands were a mixture of Duke Antoine’s old grooms, the ones who had disliked their lord; and others who had joined the service of the Keep after it had become the home of the City Council. She knew that from letters, and also that the clan’s halla… had been kept outside the city.

Virla felt fear rush through her veins. Those within the city might be safe, but what of Clan Lavellan’s halla?

And what of all the Dalish clans?

With dragon sight she’d flown above the continent, and seen the wraiths converging on the cities. She could only hope that the Dalish had done what they did best, when faced with danger they could not tackle – _run_.

She squared her shoulders, resolving to ask about the halla as soon as she found Deshanna. Hawke was obviously mistrustful, but she was not a demon. He would come around in time. Handing a pouch of silvers to the woman who seemed to be the Keep’s head groom, Virla requested food and water for both creatures. The groom eyed Revas warily, but when Valya explained she would stay with her outside the stable block, relaxed.

“Have you been here before?” asked Virla, as she walked up the broad stairs to the Keep with Hawke.

“Yes,” said Hawke, tight-lipped. Then he shrugged. “After the events in Kirkwall, we needed to scatter – make the city less of a target. Wycome was one of the places I stayed.”

Giving their names but no titles, they were ushered by a guard into an empty waiting room, with candles lit around a shrine to Andraste in the corner. Virla sat down on a hard velvet chair, and turned to Hawke.

“The envy demon possessed a dragon,” she said. “We killed it near Skyhold three dawns ago. That’s why the rock wraiths crumbled. Leliana is in Skyhold. We sent a raven to Varric to tell him. When did you leave Kirkwall?”

Hawke’s face creased in thought. “We left soon after the rock wraiths turned to dust – flying east across the Marches to see if other cities needed aid. But, Virla – if you really are her…”

“I am,” she said, willing him to see the truth. “I am, Hawke!”

“You remember where we last spoke?”

“In your dream of Sundermount.”

A heavy frown darkened his face. “During the fighting, we flew over the cave where you said you had been kept captive. There was nothing there but dragon bones strewn over the ground and lyrium scratches on the walls.”

“We’d managed to escape, but couldn’t approach the cities in case we were attacked. Killed a few rock wraiths out in the wilds instead. You didn’t see the dragon bones were years not weeks old?”

Hawke looked pained. “That’s what Dorian told me – he made Valya fly him out as well, the very next day.”

“Then you do believe me?” asked Virla, removing her helmet and twisting it in her hands.

The Champion paused. “If you were in Skyhold, how did you get here? How fast do dragons fly?”

He still didn’t seem to want to believe her, but while they continued waiting for somebody to arrive, Virla was able to explain about the eluvian in the abandoned thaig, further up the coast; and how they were controlled by Solas; and how he had assembled a large number of elves who’d assisted in fighting the dragon. With each repetition this story, with all its omissions and elisions, was getting easier to tell… and increasingly believable.

After all, she’d kept Fen’Harel’s identity a secret for two years.

She was catching Hawke up on the latest Fereldan gossip – Arl Teagan and Anora, the wedding now delayed – when a man entered the room. An elf, but not one of her clan – bare-faced, white-haired. He introduced himself to Inquisitor and Champion as Athras, and explained that Deshanna was busy in the infirmary they had set up in the basement of the Keep, using the prison cells that the Duke – here Athras glared – had grossly abused.

“Did you have many injuries in the fighting?” asked Hawke, frowning. “We are both mages – could we assist?”

“A dozen serious,” said Athras. “Deshanna is with my elder brother, Joswen. He was hahren to our alienage, and was also made a member of the City Council following the death of the Duke.”

“I remember the name,” said Virla, softly. “Our reports said that Lady Volant found his assistance invaluable.”

Athras nodded. “My brother is gravely ill. Perhaps… if you are mages, I should take you to them both.”

****

Virla had never seen Deshanna weep, not even at funerals she’d conducted. Perhaps, since she was not her patient’s Keeper, the requirement to lead from strength was found diminished. Hearing the woman sobbing, Athras and Hawke had offered to wait outside, and Virla pushed alone against the old barred door.

The man was close to death. That much was clear, as was the cause of his malady – infested wounds across his chest and legs; dark blotches spread over his skin. Deshanna was sitting by the bed holding his hand, her head leaning on her other hand, her elbow on the armrest of the chair. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

“Deshanna,” said Virla, kneeling down beside her. “Deshanna, let me see if I can heal him.”

Her old Keeper blinked in surprise, tears still running down her cheeks. “Virlath! He went to save our halla, to bring them into the city. There was an old sewer way, too small for the rock giants. Corrupted spiders set on him. Slow poison – that was weeks ago. He never told me until the fighting ended. Then he simply… collapsed.”

Virla was already coaxing the venom through his blood, a pot in place. “Miri, Noranni – did they help you?”

“They had others to help,” said Deshanna. She put her hands out as Virla indicated, to amplify the flow of magic. Then her eyes narrowed. “They… disapprove of my… friendship with Joswen. Of our staying here.”

Anger rippled through the Inquisitor’s body, and she forced herself to wield it as a scalpel, divining and dividing venom. Dark green poison dripped slowly into the pot. “Let us save him, first. Hawke is outside. May I call him?”

Deshanna nodded, hope lighting her eyes for the first time since Virla had arrived. “You think he can be saved?”

Virla nodded, calling for Hawke and Athras to come in. With another powerful mage to assist, Virla found herself more able to focus on the delicate task of separating blood and poison, reaching deep into the Veil to where she could see it magnified in red and white and green, where she could tug and pull and push each strand around.

“I tried the herbs we had,” said Deshanna to Hawke, her voice distant, “but the poison must have run too deep.”

She was dimly aware of Athras dashing the contents of the pot into a larger tin bucket he’d brought in from outside, and replacing it each time. “The Inquisitor’s magic seems to be helping. His skin is less pale now.”

That was a good sign. Rage had led her to give these people hope, beyond what she knew she could do – yet, if Mythal could not save this man, then who on Thedas could? Virla took a deep breath and kept purging.

Three hours later, she dropped back fully from the Fade, and found Hawke steadying her shoulders.

“Well done, Inquisitor,” he said. “Is that it all?”

“I can’t be sure,” she said, inspecting the man’s clear skin. No wounds remained; his breathing was even.

Deshanna caught her in her arms, and hugged her fiercely. “ _Da’len,_ I am so _proud_ of you. How did you escape?”

Virla stiffened, trying to remember where the pieces on the chessboard were. _Escape?_ She stepped back, still holding one of the Keeper’s hands, and spoke as confidently as she dared. “Deshanna, I think Joswen is well enough to travel. Come with me to Skyhold by eluvian. Joswen could be strapped on to Revas or my mare. At Skyhold, Solas could inspect him and confirm if we have found all the poison. He is vastly more experienced than me.”

“Who’s Revas?” asked Athras.

“My friend’s griffon,” said Hawke, with a slight smile. “Virla, what if Athras and Valya and I come as well?”

“Solas… at Skyhold?” asked Deshanna, twisting the ring of sylvanwood on her finger as Virla nodded gratefully to Hawke. “But, Virlath… they say he is Fen’Harel! Soren told me you were with him in Aratishan. Was that true?”

Virla nodded, willing herself to be strong. “And Keeper Hawen has consented to our bonding on Summerday.”

“Creators, what is the man thinking?” swore Deshanna, growing pale. “No wonder you sought my aid, child!”

  



	23. Apprehension

It was as if she’d been back in Clan Lavellan, swept up in a tide of Deshanna’s making. Virla hadn’t been allowed to say another word about her bonding or Fen’Harel in front of the men, and certainly not in front of Miri or the merchant leader of the Wycome City Council, to whom Deshanna had bidden a brief farewell before they’d left.

Joswen’s illness was the reason given them for Deshanna’s journey, and as Virla glanced across at him, slowly regaining consciousness as they travelled through the empty darkness of the thaig, she wondered how the Wycome elder had captured Keeper’s heart. He looked to be of a similar age to Deshanna, with a sinewy body and hands that suggested he’d worked his share of physical labour, in the alienage or out of it.

They’d ridden back out to the walls: horses, halla and a griffon. Bua in front; then Valya on Revas, Joswen strapped behind her in a cradle of leather and ropes; Deshanna on the halla Tanla; and Athras and Hawke sharing a great grey stallion from the Wycome stables. She’d advised that they bring only experienced mounts, used to cliff paths and caves, and hoped that Solas had frightened away any spiders that survived within the thaig. Athras had never previously ridden a horse, and clung to Hawke’s waist, his expression set and grim.

Virla led them through the last echoing hall, up to where a mirage of a stone wall hung to hide the entrance to the chamber for the eluvian. She slid off Bua’s back, landing easily on the ancient earthen floor, and whispered the agreed word to make the wards dissipate. The party dismounted, all except Joswen, whose hand Deshanna held as Valya led Revas onward. Athras took tight hold of Tanla’s reins, and Hawke brought up the rear.

Wherever he was now, Solas would feel her, hear her, would sense the company she kept, would open the mirror to the Crossroads. Against her skin, the cool touch of the sending crystal, suspended as a pendant from a silver chain. Better not to use that unless needed. Stepping in front of the eluvian, Virla closed her eyes, wondering if she would be able to feel the flicker of magic that would pass across the Veil, his gentle touch.

Even when he’d been about to leave her, he’d been gentle. Strange, the Dread Wolf was so… kind.

“How does it work?” asked Hawke, his voice echoing.

Virla opened her eyes to find him standing close by her, inspecting the eluvian with genuine interest.

“Solas will open it,” she said. It was the first time she had said his name since Wycome, and she felt, rather than saw, Deshanna stiffening in disapproval. “We will exit by another eluvian into Skyhold, our fortress in the Frostback Mountains. First we go through the Crossroads: a place of magic created by the ancient elves…”

As if the word _elves_ had been the charm, the mirror rippled gleaming white, and she could sense the basalt columns on the other side, bridges back to home and hearth. Virla stepped through first, guiding them all.

“It’s beautiful,” called Valya, her eyes drawn up to the rainbow sky. “Look up!”

Athras looked up, intrigued. Joswen was breathing steadily, his eyes fluttering closed. “Follow me closely, and stay calm,” said Virla, as Hawke brought the stallion through. For a few minutes they obeyed in silence.

“What if the Dread Wolf traps us here?” asked Deshanna on the second bridge, her voice stern, eyes narrowed.

“Solas never does anything without good reason,” said Virla, telling herself to forget the blood-red memories of eluvians slammed closed. They needed her confidence. “I am sure he would rather talk with you.”

“You haven’t met him?” asked Hawke of Deshanna, wincing slightly as he looked up at the sky. Virla recalled that it probably looked grey and dull to him, the colours created by magic rather than by normal light.

The Keeper shook her head. “The only time I left Wycome was when I travelled to Val Royeaux after Corypheus’ defeat, to speak with Virlath about her transfer to another clan. Solas was no longer with the Inquisition.”

“Solas seemed a quiet man, but one of strong feeling,” said Hawke. “We were both furious with the Wardens’ decisions in Orlais. A skilled and powerful mage. I actually thought he might have escaped from Tevinter: a friend of mine, another elf, an escaped slave, had similarly passionate views about the importance of freedom.”

“Fenris?” asked Virla, and Hawke nodded. “How is he?”

“Still in Kirkwall, helping Varric to set things in order. Kirkwall was harder hit than Wycome – some demons came in through the Veil, and I suspect we had more giants converging on us. Kirkwall seems to attract trouble.”

“It is close to Sundermount,” said Deshanna, as if that were answer enough. She looked up across at Virla, her expression hard to read. To Hawke, she said: “You had no idea that he was older than he looked?”

“I never really gave it that much thought,” said Hawke with a shrug. “Our goals were aligned. And when we fell into the Fade, he had many helpful suggestions. A calming presence. Cautious, precise, knowledgeable.”

Deshanna frowned. “And you didn’t think it strange that he was so familiar with the Fade?”

Hawke shook his head. “I once met a somniari mage in Kirkwall, a Dreamer. Feynriel, son of Arianni, formerly of Clan Sabrae. I knew there were more somniari in Tevinter. Solas was unusual, but people like the Inquisitor attract unusual companions. I became friends with a Dalish First myself – Merrill, also from Clan Sabrae.”

“A former Dalish First,” said Deshanna, pursing her lips. “I spoke with Marethari Sabrae at the Arlathvhen.”

“How was she?” asked Hawke, with what Virla was beginning to recognise as his diplomatic charm, an ability to turn conversations to his favour. He must have truly doubted her at first today, to have been so rattled.

Virla walked on quietly, hoping Hawke’s words would bear fruit, and wondering if her strategy was wise, to let Deshanna think that she was seeking relief from the orders of her Keeper, in being married to the Dread Wolf. The woman had always demanded strict obedience to Dalish traditions – but had that changed, with Joswen?

At least their patient’s colour was improving with every minute spent walking through the Crossroads, enough for him to look around with wide eyes, faintly smiling when he cast Deshanna’s gaze. The Keeper’s fears seemed to be subsiding each time she looked at Joswen, at his slight figure atop the enormous griffon. Virla willed herself into calmness. She hadn’t helped Joswen for the good of her own immortal soul, nor out of expedience, but her actions ought to help them win Deshanna’s favour too, as well as reassure the Champion.

From far off she could see that the eluvian was already opened for them, as if in reassurance from her lover. 

“Look!” said Virla, hastening her steps, dizzy with relief. “The Skyhold eluvian is opened for us.”

****

The welcome party in the courtyard was larger than she had expected, but with one notable exception: no Solas.

At the centre of the arc stood Keeper Hawen, dressed in what she knew were his best robes. He was flanked by Ithiren the halla-keeper and Taniel the craftsmaster. To Ithiren’s right were Josephine and Baron Desjardins, and to Taniel’s left were Cassandra and Caronel. Quelling her first irrational instinct – a fear that he had run away – she turned to make the necessary introductions and explanations, and spotted Sera watching from the wall above, with Dagna and Lace Harding. Presumably Divine Victoria was busy – or holding herself in reserve.

In slow groupings, the people disappeared. Caronel and Valya with the griffon, as good friends reunited; Hawke with Cassandra, exchanging the latest news; Athras and Joswen with Desjardins and Josephine, to a room in the mage tower where Solas would attend them; Ithiren and Taniel with the horses and halla Tanla to the stables and the halla pen; and, finally, Sera and the dwarves along the battlements. Back towards the tavern, Virla guessed.

Deshanna would have followed Joswen, but, to Virla’s surprise, the hahren waved her away. “You have done enough for me, my dear,” were the words she caught. “If I have heard aright, your duty lies elsewhere. These good people of the Inquisition seem determined to take care of me. Come by me later, when you’ve rested.”

The Keeper had nodded, a stern expression crossing her face, and let Virla lead her across to a small seat in the courtyard, exhaustion overcoming pride. Virla sank on to the old wooden slats, thankful to be able to rest her own tired limbs – the healing work had drained her strength, and the ride had tested her endurance.

After the others had left, Keeper Hawen walked over to them. “It is good to see you here, my sister,” he began.

Keeper Deshanna inclined her head. “I am indebted to your First for making the journey to collect me.”

Hawen gestured around the courtyard. “This place was once an elven stronghold: Tarasyl’an Te’las. Its magic persists. The sensation is most strong in these parts, and in the forge beside the waterfall that flows beneath.”

Virla took a deep breath of the cool mountain air, wondering if she could tell whether any of the birds were Solas, listening in. Deshanna appeared to be admiring the garden – sheltered and shaded from the late afternoon sun – but through the Veil, she felt the woman losing patience with them both, and all the world.

“Virlath has told me of the plans for Summerday,” said her former Keeper, her voice an anguished prayer. “Hawen Al’var, I trusted her to you. The Arlathvhen trusted her to you! How could you allow this binding?”

Keeper Hawen stiffened, straightening his shoulders. “It is the best course of action,” he replied.

“Are you not frightened of reprisals?”

“Naturally.” Hawen’s eyes went hard, staring up at the mountains. “But it is my decision to make.”

Deshanna leant forward, her hands clasped in agitation. “To bond her in this way?”

“She will be happy.”

“And what of Fen’Harel?” Her voice dropped on the last word, as if she also feared his overhearing.

Hawen’s response was calm, not troubling to lower his voice. “I believe he is content to live a quiet life.”

“Soren has told me of his pride,” said Deshanna. “I fear your actions will offend it, and his sense of propriety.”

“It is his choice. He loves her, Deshanna. And she is more than simply one of the People now. Did you see the Silver City, the rainbow sky? The Creators owe their victory to her as well as him. He told me that.”

Deshanna looked bewildered. “Then why force this bonding on her?”

“There is no force involved, save love,” said Hawen, meeting her gaze. “I am protecting her, and all of us.”

“So she agreed to bond with you, because Fen’Harel willed it so? I do not believe that.”

Virla and Hawen stared at her, astonished, then Virla’s eyes went wide as she saw Hawen flush dark red.

“No!” he cried. “Not with me. **Never** with me, Deshanna. You… she… Never mind. With him! On Summerday.”

Virla’s heart thumped painfully. How could Deshanna have been so mistaken? What had she said? Her mind was a white void, she couldn’t think what she had told them all, before Deshanna cut her off.

Deshanna had a hand to her mouth, covering a gasp. “Virlath,” she moaned, her hands falling back to her lap in horror. “Do I hear this right? You are to be bonded with… Fen’Harel? Not with Keeper Hawen?”

“Yes! That’s what I said,” said Virla, remembering at last. “Keeper Hawen has consented to our bonding,” she repeated, then stopped, realising how her Keeper must have misinterpreted her statement.

“I thought you meant… with him!” said Deshanna faintly, pointing at Hawen. Her gaze fell to her other hand, still clamped within her lap, and she ran its thumb over and over the ring of sylvanwood that nestled on her index finger. “I feared Fen’Harel’s vengeance would be terrible, if you had been his mistress in the Tirashan.”

Virla reached out to cover Deshanna’s ring with her hand. Its magic pulsed within her grasp, a memory of trees and sunlight. It gave her strength. “I want to bond with him, am willing. I think it for the best, as Hawen does.”

Deshanna sat back against the hard frame of the seat, shaking her head in bemusement. As she did so, Virla saw, high above them, a door opening on to the balcony leading from the Great Hall, the opposite side from where Sera, Dagna and Lace had leant against the balustrade to watch their entrance. Solas stood there, sunlight gleaming off the silver staff he carried.

 _Tyrdda’s staff_ – thought Virla – _and what is the significance of that?_

Both Keepers watched in silence as he leant the staff against the wall, transformed into a raven and flew down.

“Solas has become my Second, a member of Clan Al’var,” said Hawen, recovering his composure just as Solas bowed to them all. “Solas, this is Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan, newly arrived from Wycome.”

Deshanna managed to nod again, but seemed to be lost for words, and not simply out of embarrassment.

“I apologise I was not here to greet you earlier,” said Solas, with a slight smile. “I had been to Denerim to collect our friend Cole, and was returning from showing him and Maryden and Commander Cullen to their chambers.”

Virla hid her surprise – she'd been going to do that tomorrow. _Why the change of plan?_

“Commander Cullen said he would be pleased to meet you again, Keeper Deshanna, to enquire after the citizens of Wycome, and how they fare since the Inquisition’s troops departed. Then Lady Montilyet asked me to see if Elder Joswen remained in danger from the wounds he had received. I am happy to confirm that he is not,” continued Solas smoothly. Then he turned to Virla, and his eyes softened. “Cole is eager to meet you, Virla.”

Deshanna was watching them intently. “They say that you are Fen’Harel,” she said. “Is that true?”

Solas turned to look at her, his expression briefly hardening. Power gathered in the Veil, then streamed away, unused. “I am not a metaphor, Deshanna,” he said. “That was a title bestowed upon me, many ages since. Originally, the words meant something different. There was a deliberate attempt to blacken my memory following the fall of Halamshiral. Keeper Hawen, you will remember the statues of wolves within the Dirth.”

Hawen inclined his head in agreement; Virla bit her lip. She’d meant to ask him if it was Flemeth – Asha’bellanar, carrying a twisted, deadened fragment of Mythal – who’d turned the Dalish clans against him. The scholars of Orlais had written that the meaning of _harellan_ as traitor dated to the Towers Age, when Flemeth had first lived.

“There have been great statues of wolves in all the ancient elven temples I have seen,” she said. “Not angry, on their haunches like the versions carved of wood in Dalish clans, but peaceful, watchful… guardian wolves.”

Solas nodded. “Keeper Deshanna, I do not know if you are aware, but Keeper Hawen has granted me permission to take Virlath as my bondmate. To guard her, if you will. Are you familiar with the rite of _adahl’sulahn_?”

Slowly, Deshanna nodded, her expression wary and guarded. In contrast, Hawen glowered. “That is a secret of the Keepers! It is not yours to tell!” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “At least, not… in front of Virlath.”

“I will respect your wishes, Keeper,” said Solas. “Though _adahl’sulahn_ was an ancient rite of Arlathan, before it passed into the Dalish Keepers’ hands. I simply wished you both to know that I believe her worthy.”

After all the secrets Virla had learned and kept, it felt frustrating to be shut out of this one. All she could do was observe and deduce. Hawen looked relieved, but also distinctly uncomfortable; Solas determinedly blank. Deshanna tilted her head to one side, her eyes flickering between them all, as if judging the relationships.

“Very well,” she said eventually, squaring her shoulders and looking Solas directly in the eyes. “You have joined a Dalish clan. What if your Keeper asked you to surrender all your secrets?”

Solas mirrored her expression. “Then I would have to warn him that the recitation would be a long one.”

“And does Virlath believe _you_ worthy?” said Deshanna, her gaze still holding his: assessing, appraising.

“It is for her to say that,” he said, and held out his hand, palm up, to indicate that she should speak.

Virla turned to Deshanna, her voice urgent. She cupped her left hand out in front of her, the line a shining scar of blue across it. “You taught me to question our legends; that nothing could be changed without an understanding of its causes. Your beliefs sent me to the Conclave. Yet I would have died – the world would have died! – without this man. He is worthy, Keeper. I love him. You are the closest I have to a mother. Please stay till Summerday.”

Deshanna frowned down at her ring of sylvanwood. “I will stay here overnight,” she said, “and think on it.”

Hawen sighed. “Virla, would you give Deshanna your bedroll in the aravel tonight? We have much to discuss.”

She nodded, trying not to feel despondent. It had been naive to imagine Deshanna would be pleased for her.

  



	24. Posturing

Virla could not look away from Deshanna’s face as the Keeper took in the scale of the Great Hall, lit from the sunlight blazing through the windows at the far end. The elder woman’s frown had deepened, but somehow seemed more general, as if she were comparing what the elves had known in decades since, with this.

She had wanted to show her old Keeper the fresco, the library, the mosaics – but the Divine’s secretary was waiting, and she would have to be content with making a promise to provide a full tour later. As Hawen led Deshanna down the main stairs to the courtyards and the aravels, they followed Sister Clemency towards the war council room. Leliana was waiting there, having requested to see them both as soon as possible.

“Do you know what this is about?” asked Virla, pitching her voice low for Solas’ ears alone.

“I went to Denerim today at Most Holy’s request,” said Solas, equally quietly. “I expect she wishes to hear how both of us got on, and how the cities fare. I have not had time to speak with her since I returned.”

They forebore from speaking again until Sister Clemency held open the first door for them. She was a tall woman, dressed in the short white robes, red tabard and sunburst cap that were required for those ordained to serve. A woman of few words, she had an excellent memory – and a dry sense of humour which Leliana found refreshing. Of those now close to Leliana, she was the Chantry sister that Virla had known best, before the Exalted Council. It was strange, to be with all these people, after so long in – almost – solitary confinement.

It felt like years had passed, or only days.

Virla tilted her head up to thank the Sister as she passed by, out of the Great Hall. With the movement came a sudden dizziness, and she stumbled slightly as she followed Solas through the next door. He didn’t seem to have noticed, and instead continued on to greet Desjardins, back at what she still had to think of as Josephine’s desk.

“Your Worship, messere,” said the Baron, smiling at them all. “You will find Most Holy in the council room.”

Sister Clemency had taken a seat by the hearth, picking up a small devotional volume. A personal meeting, then, and not an official-on-Divine-business one. A good thing, given that she was still in messenger clothes, her hair dusty and her body in need of a bath. The eluvian Solas had used to reach Denerim must have been close to the city, since he looked respectably tidy, robed in the same fine moss-green wool he’d worn this morning.

She could still feel the sand between her toes, from dancing on the beach.

“Did you talk to Josephine about the arrangements?” she asked, waiting on the short flight of steps as Solas closed the barred door to the outer office. “Will she help us plan the ceremonies?”

“Yes, and I discussed with her and Baron Desjardins the sum we agreed last night,” said Solas.

They walked up the stairs and paused by the first arched window, in mutual silent consent to seize a few moments alone together. “Thank you,” said Virla, leaning against the half-pillar that jutted out of the stone.

Solas stood opposite her, upright, with his hands behind his back. “They wish to check the figures with you, before they confirm the arrangements.”

It must be strange for him, to be beholden to her command once more. _Under you…_ Virla felt heat rising to her cheeks, that runed image of his naked, muscled body underneath a goddess – _her_ – impossible to shift. She glanced past him to the war room door, forgetting Leliana, remembering the suggestion he had made.

“I keep having to remind myself we’re going to be together, here,” she said, speaking words as soft distraction from thoughts that were becoming dangerously obscene. “I never expected that.”

Solas unlaced his hands from behind her back, and sought out her own, stepping towards her. “ _Vhenan,_ it will take us both time to become accustomed to our new reality. It is a challenge we will meet together.”

Virla nodded, and standing on tiptoes, pressed a kiss into his cheek, and several more into his neck, suddenly too shy to dare to kiss his lips without permission, nor to speak to seek it. His skin was warm, smelled good…

“I would return the favour,” said Solas, his voice tinged with regret, “but we ought to see Leliana.”

She sighed, knocking her head gently against his shoulder. “I know,” she said, returning the pressure of the squeeze he gave her hands. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather set up home in a forest?”

“Perhaps. But while the Qun remains a threat to the freedom of our fellow mages, I think it better that we are in a position to make use of our existing networks. Besides,” said Solas, with a low chuckle, “I have my forest here.”

“You mean me?” she asked, and he nodded. “What is _adahl’sulahn_ , the ritual you mentioned?”

“A secret of the Dalish Keepers. You heard Keeper forbid me from telling it to you. Why do you ask?”

“Because you told me I have the spirit of the Forest of Arlathan!” said Virla, in a heated whisper. Outside, the snow-capped mountains moved at glacial speed, one shout from an avalanche. “Will you really not tell me?”

“There is no need,” said Solas, and as she opened her mouth to argue, disentangled one of his hands and held it up, requesting silence. She closed her mouth, frowning up at him. “The goal of _adahl’sulahn_ was achieved.”

It seemed he was determined to speak in riddles. “Achieved? Then how could you believe me worthy of it?”

Solas smirked. “A good question. But not one I will answer.” His expression softened. “ _Vhenan, y_ ou have enough for now. Any more, and I risk trespassing on Keeper Hawen’s goodwill towards me.”

He brought his hand to her cheek, caressing her skin, and she felt the web of tangled emotions tighten. The Dread Wolf loved her, and his love, combined with his impossibly vast experience, would help her through this maze. She was a crawling ant, a leaf within a forest, a forest within the vastnesses of space… and he would help.

She sighed again. “You are trying to tell me something. I can’t think about it now.”

He looked relieved, saying: “Good. Shall we proceed? It would not be politic to leave Most Holy waiting.”

Virla let him pull her away from the wall, and hoped that Leliana would not keep them long. She ought to have a bath, and food, and… there was that dizziness again, as Solas dropped her hand to ease the war room doors open. For all their weight they swung easily on oiled hinges, and so she could immediately see that it was not just Leliana there, but Josephine, and Cole and Maryden, Sera, Dagna, Lace, Cassandra, Hawke… and Cullen.

Somebody had laid the table with a white cloth, and put out drinks, decorated the room with flowers and bright ribbons. Sunlight sparkled on the wine, and Virla felt the world shimmering, as if she were in the middle of an eluvian. A heavy wave of nausea engulfed her. Too many people turning round, those shining glasses raised, to cheer her in. Their faces swam in front of her eyes – her friends, the friends she’d left behind to find him…

She glanced back at Solas, seeing him as shocked as she herself was, and felt her vision turning black. She took a deep breath, determined not to faint in front of all her friends, and smiled with apparent delight.

Leliana drifted across the floor, holding out a glass for each of them. The room blurring around them both, Virla felt Solas slip his arm around her waist, keeping her upright against him. It was a relief to know she didn’t have to tell him how close she’d been to losing consciousness, to slumping back and fainting in his arms.

“Everyone is here to celebrate your betrothal,” said the Divine, indicating the room. “To Virla and Solas!”

The toast was repeated around the room. Virla took the glass mechanically, and raised it to her lips with practised grace. The wine’s bouquet reminded her of blood lotus, and she took only the smallest of sips.

Somehow she got through the next fifteen minutes – Solas ever present at her side, smiling, taking the lead in conversation, encouraging her to sip the wine (scent is from the flowers, not the drink, he said), nibble canapés. Immediate duty done, he persuaded Josephine to let them retire and change their clothes, before returning.

Out of the room, he guided her past Desjardins and Sister Clemency, then, to her surprise, lifted her in his arms and began to carry her down the stairs towards the kitchens and the vault, rather than through the Great Hall.

Virla laid her aching head against his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“The old library,” he said, frowning down at her. His eyes were sharp with pain and worry. At its door, he placed her on her feet, steadying her against himself while he unlocked the room and purged the wards. “I requested its use as my study, for this week at least. Josephine and I worked on the planning here this morning.”

She nodded blankly: it made sense. With a sigh, he picked her up again, carrying her to the soft red leather chair that she remembered being here before. The room was clean, the books all neatly shelved, and in the middle of the floor a locked chest had been placed, with MESSERE SOLAS picked out on the top in neat gold paint.

“They took away the skulls,” she murmured. “I wonder where the spiders have gone now.”

Solas ignored her, putting a hand to a wrist and another to her head. His hands felt cool and assured, testing her vital signs, and she laid her head back, closing her eyes. “Stay here,” he said. “I will fetch you water and a meal.”

She heard him go, not troubling to lock the door, but felt the rush of magic as he placed the ward.

It seemed only a few minutes later that he was back, kneeling before her, making her drink a glass of water before he would let her talk. The peace and quiet was helping – not having to justify herself, be on display…

“I used to be able to cope with all these people,” said Virla querulously, a hand to her burning temples.

Solas looked annoyed. “It was unreasonable to organise a party without giving you a chance to recover!”

“They meant well,” said Virla. “Divine Victoria’s schedule is so busy… ”

“How long did you spend trying to heal Master Joswen?” asked Solas more calmly, as she trailed off. He took the glass from her other hand, and filled it up again. “Master Athras said he had been poisoned.”

“Several hours. When I arrived  he was close to death. Deshanna loves him, Solas – I couldn’t let him die!”

Solas met her eyes: his own were filled with unshed tears. “You cannot save them all, _vhenan._ ”

“I know,” she said, between sips of the water. She looked down at her hands, the mark a scar of blue. “But with Joswen, he was there in front of me. I thought I had to try. Perhaps I should have rested afterwards.”

“It would have been wise. Undoubtedly, you saved his life. But such extensive use of power requires you pay the price of it thereafter. I will watch you for the remainder of today. Did you have anything to eat?”

“Deshanna offered us some soup and bread before we left. I… was not hungry, then.”

“And now?” Solas stood up again, and uncovered the rest of the tray he’d brought in. “There is bread, and honey, almonds, a slice of trout pie, dried sausage meat, a hardboiled egg, mash, and a banana from Rivain.”

Virla laughed weakly. “I see you have the kitchen staff eating out of your hand again. Bread and honey, please.”

“The kitchen maids remembered me,” he said. He cut the crusty end from the loaf, then dipped the knife in the small clay pot and spread honey thickly over the bread. “They had heard our news – and wished us joy.”

“That is kind of them,” she said. “Hawen said he had spent time over the winter getting to know the people here. He said that they respected you. He also said that they thought you had decided you were too old for me, and that is why you left. There were not many Dalish on the staff – the servants scarcely know of Fen’Harel.”

“But surely many are Andrastian,” he objected. “Should not the Herald of Andraste marry in that faith?”

“They assumed you were a city elf, if they thought anything about it. No reason to object on grounds of faith.”

She took a bite of the bread and honey, feeling better by the minute. Solas poured himself a glass of brandy, and dashed it off. “What did you make of Keeper Deshanna’s reaction?” he asked, seating himself in another chair.

“I’d hoped she might be pleased for me, but I am not surprised she wishes time to think. It is… hard for all of us Dalish, who grew up with the tales of Fen’Harel, of your betrayal of the Creators, your trickery and cunning.”

He sighed, staring up at the shelves of books. “Intelligence is not a vice. And nor was pride, before the Veil.”

They fell silent, each – it seemed to Virla – lost in their own reflections. But it was comforting to have him here, and once she’d had her fill of nourishment, she felt her strength returning, and was able to convince Solas to let her retire to her own room to bathe and change her clothes, promising to return to him in half an hour’s time.

****

Virla smoothed down her silver-and-lilac dress, a flutter of nervousness in her breast as she stood in front of the old library door. She’d dried her hair roughly with a towel then pinned it up in two buns at the back of her neck, to suit the Fereldan-style dress she’d once bought in Denerim, for a meeting with Anora. The schedule Solas had shown her listed another banquet tonight, and she’d be sat beside Arl Teagan, with Solas on her other side.

She raised her hand to knock, and found the door opening in front of her. Solas had taken the opportunity to change as well, and was in a silver satin jerkin, dark blue silk breeches and Fereldan leather boots.

His face relaxed as he saw her. “I was about to come and find you, _vhenan._ How are you feeling?”

“Very much better, thanks to you. Did Josephine suggest your clothes as well? My schedule was annotated.”

Solas raised his eyebrows, amused. “You think I am incapable of selecting suitable attire?”

She laughed, and took his arm as they ascended the stairs. “No, of course not. I was simply wondering whether you were also being managed as I was. If you did choose these yourself, you ought to be proud of the effect.”

“Then I will confess that Josephine provided me advice as well, and I am proud of the picture we will present as a couple,” said Solas, his eyes brightening as he smiled down at her. “You are so very beautiful, _‘ma sa’lath_. And I have just heard there is a further change to the schedule. We are to clear the Hall and hold a dance tonight.”

Virla squeezed his arm, then mused: “I wonder if my clan will join for that. Do you know any Dalish dances?”

“ _Our_ clan, _vhenan,_ ” corrected Solas. “I have watched a goodly number from the Fade. Many seem familiar, though I do not know their modern names. Spirits focus on the dancers’ emotions, not the rhythm or the steps.”

“I was worried about meeting Cullen,” said Virla. “He cared for me. But the Commander seemed happy for us.”

Solas nodded in agreement, pausing as they reached the top of the flight of stairs. In a low voice, he confessed: “I had also feared his jealousy. My agents told me that his love for you persisted. Yet, from what Cole said, the Commander became enamoured of another mage during the recent siege of Denerim. I do not know her name.”

They had reached the door into the outer office. “I am relieved to hear he no longer cares for me,” said Virla.

“Yes, we have enough complications without the Commander trying to challenge me to a duel for your heart.”

“You always had it,” she assured him. “Never doubt it.”

He smiled, a faint flush touching his cheeks. “I don’t. And if the music plays tonight… dance with me, _vhenan_?”

****

Their return to the betrothal party – an hour after they’d left it – was toasted even more exuberantly than the first time, with Sera cheering them on from atop the iron standard of an owl, left over, Virla now knew, from the days of Ameridan and Telana. Leliana and Josephine were deep in conversation, Cullen exchanging jokes with Lace and Dagna, and was that Hawke flirting with Cassandra? Maryden strummed her lute while Cole looked on.

Even the banquet went smoothly, with Arl Teagan comforted by the news that Denerim was safe, and more so by a personal missive from the hand of Queen Anora – the quest that Leliana had entrusted Solas with.

And once the Hall was cleared, the Herald’s guests danced familiar dances from Ferelden and Orlais, in pairs and groups. Then, ostensibly at Keeper Hawen’s request, they all stepped back, partaking of the wine and jellied meats, while the Herald and Fen’Harel danced the Dalish dance of eight steps. A simple dance – less subtle than the grand form of the eightfold blooms that Solas knew from faded Arlathan – yet, as a spectacle, effective. And both knew that Deshanna watched them still, and so they made the modern form a thing of ancient beauty.

  



	25. Dulcian

Before each step, a delay. Turning, twisting, lifting Virla by the waist, never missing the hard beat of the pulse. Their bare feet tracing frosted runes on Skyhold’s floor. Dancing a slow progression, eightfold round, accompanied by Hawen on the dulcian, its low notes amplified by natural acoustic.

They were dancing in a circle of rose petals.

White rose petals, still scented. Apparently, Cole had brought them all the way from Denerim, freshly plucked that morning. And when he’d brought them out, great handfuls from a leather satchel, Virla had leaned over, her face aglow. _Eight steps,_ she’d said, and turned to him, fingers tracing patterns on the tablecloth.

At the centre, touching Virlath’s hand each time.

Memories of marble floors; tiered galleries of watching elves; himself spectator not participant. That the Dalish had remembered it at all was admirable, dancing it in pairs on forest floors, the music from a whittled, hollowed branch. At the height of Arlathan a thousand slaves performed this dance in honour of himself.

They came to the centre too.

Turning, twisting. From this angle he could see the rest of Hawen’s clan. Solas Fen’Harel Al’var. A new name for another century. Opposite, and mirroring his movements, Virla traced the points of each new cusp. Behind her, high and out of phase, Deshanna. Istimaethoriel Lavellan. He was not dancing for Deshanna.

As he touched her hand he met her gaze.

The petals rose and fell as magic swirled. Before each step, a delay. The high arched ceiling of the Hall; the cloud of petals, touched white by the candlelight; the dulcian that sang and lulled from high up on the balcony, above the old stone owl. Divine Victoria upon her sacred throne, unearthed again from storage.

Virlath’s gaze was warm and violet, her red hair neatly parted.

She’d completed the mosaics, he noted; and somebody had replaced the Dalish banners he remembered with sombre Inquisition ones. Kirkwall’s ravens stood where hooded Circle mages had been ranged; and all around the balcony were elves that he had saved, clutching tickets from his makeshift lottery.

They would need all the symbolism he could muster.

They were dancing near the Great Hall doors, where the floor was flat. The best view for the elves above, with Hawen’s clan – his clan, their clan – clustered round the music. He wished that Leliana’s guests, far flung at the other end, could also see the hope that shone within their eyes.

Sometimes, hope might linger after death.

The final pass. Turning, twisting, synchronized through music, rhythm from a melody that spirits sang in dreams and wept, yet here to herald joy. For too few brief moments he was here, within the moment, neither past nor future in his mind. Dancing, stepping, swaying, lifting, breathing. Petals in a hemisphere around.

Finishing, as always, in the centre.

****

Her hands were clasped in his, close between their bodies; her face was flushed with delight. Solas could not help returning her smile. After a pause, a bow to Leliana and to Hawen, the petals drifting on the stone, they slipped out through the door to the rotunda. They’d left their shoes beneath the desk… _her_ desk. He was still thinking in rhythms: heart beating fast, feet treading slow. Still holding her hand, holding on to the moment.

“You may need to let go of me, if we want to put on our boots,” said Virla, laughing up at him.

Behind them, the applause had already faded. Lute supplanted dulcian. Maryden began to sing a ballad.

He tightened his hand around hers, leading her away from the desk and towards the outer door. “Leave them. It is warm tonight. Come with me, _vhenan_ – I would like to show you something.”

“We had best not go too far,” said Virla, with a glance back in the direction of the Great Hall. “And we should thank Keeper Hawen for the music.”

“You are correct,” said Solas, pushing open the door. “But this will not take long.”

The air outside was cool, but the stones beneath their feet were warm enough. He shifted into a raven, flying slowly to allow her time to follow, and soared up to the top of the rotunda. Returned to elven form, they stood side by side, catching their breath, inhaling the sweet nocturnal scents of the arboris festooning the walls.

He pointed up to the east. “What do you see, when you observe the constellation Visus?”

“There is a new star, just underneath it. Dorian mentioned it.”

Virla leaned her cheek against his shoulder, and he wreathed an arm around her.

“I also perceived it,” he said, remembering the wonder of that moment. “At Satinalia, a few months after I had left you. I journeyed to the Hissing Wastes, to one of our abandoned camps. I wondered if you’d seen it too.”

“Why were you thinking of it now?” Virla’s voice was soft: intrigued, not bewildered.

“I took it as a sign of hope: a tear of compassion from Andraste’s eye, blood from her sword. A reminder that something new could still grow in my heart. I had been determined to complete my path alone. But I could not forget you. I could not forget the work the Dalish had done, in sowing seeds, entwining roots, in making you.”

“For each knight, a seed was sown,” she said, correctly attributing his reference to Din’an Hanin. “Roots twisting with their brothers and sisters. So the forest grew, a reflection of our might... and sorrow.”

“Their songs were all about the past. And I, like them, had clung to it.”

He could feel laughter run through her frame before the giggle escaped her lips. “How very Dalish of you.”

“Indeed,” he said, tightening his arm around her. “And yet, tonight, I feel our people have a future.”

A future they’d bought for them with body and with blood, with song and sacrifice. Not the future he’d planned, to free the People all at once by taking down the Veil, but one she’d gradually convinced him might be possible.

It might even be better than a post-Veil world, with magic carefully constrained, no blight, and spirits in a bright clear moon, with eggs to make them real. Many centuries would be required to birth them out into the world. Yet they had time. The most important task for now was to preserve her love, ensure her duty was a joy… and not a burden he must force upon her. The People swore their lives to him, and he must swear his own to her.

With that in mind, he shifted himself to stand directly behind her, whispering in her ear: “ _Ar lath, ‘ma Virlath._ ”

She trembled, leaning back against him, tilting her head to one side to allow him to press kisses into her neck.

“You dance beautifully,” he said. He was holding her as if she were a precious rose, her waist the stem.

“Does it remind you of Elvhenan?” she asked, her voice hopeful.

He shook his head, gazing up at the star below Visus. “No, not really.”

The rose wilted in his hands; she sighed. “I expect the dancing was more beautiful then.”

“That is not what I meant,” he said. “Your dancing far surpasses anyone in Elvhenan.”

His comment brought a delicate flush of pink to her cheeks. “It cannot be better than yours,” said Virla.

He chuckled. “In ancient Arlathan, it would have been undignified for me to participate. Dancing was carried out by slaves, as spectacle: hundreds or thousands at a time. It was meant to be observed.”

“Observed, not enjoyed,” she pointed out, shrewd as always for her years. “How did you learn to dance?”

He breathed more kisses into her neck, tickling her and making her laugh again. “From time to time,” he said, “I managed to disguise myself, in order that I might take part.”

“Naturally,” she said, still giggling. “And who was your favourite dance partner, in those times?”

It would not do to mention Sophiyel, or any of the spirits of Grace who patiently instructed him, through years and years of training. He smirked. “Ideally someone who would not recognise the Dread Wolf.”

“I did not recognise the Dread Wolf,” she objected. “Are you calling me unobservant?”

“Maybe I am declaring that you are my favourite dance partner,” he parried. “Since the Veil, time has a more insistent beat, as if the proximity or finality of death enlivens those who live against its rhythm.”

Virla paused before she spoke, taking in his words. “Have you always been fascinated by death?”

“The Void is all around us. The gaps between dreams. The silence where the song cannot reach. But dying is not beautiful. It involves pain, a loss of control, uncertainty. People do not wish to die.”

“Maybe that is why we dance. To avoid death, or the thought of death.”

“Emotions are more centred now in the body than the mind or Fade. More… real, even.”

She shifted in his arms, twisting around so she could look up at his face. A flicker of doubt crossed her face. “But not for us? Is that what I have lost, in becoming immortal?”

He hastened to reassure her. “Even for us. I am not a spirit. You are not a spirit. We are real.”

“But how can that be?”

“Through a profound connection to the Veil. It is my spell, and you took in my essence: that connects you to the Veil as well. Even forests need the cleansing touch of fire to spur re-growth. An elemental balance.”

She still looked perplexed, her violet eyes shadowed under a frown, and he realised no amount of didactic explanation would expunge the doubt he’d placed there: _am I real?_

Instead, he lowered his head to hers, and kissed her, tentatively at first and then with passion blossoming; his hands reaching downwards to pull her body in towards him, pushing her back against the low stone wall. Her mouth was warm and tasted of mead. All the soft curves of her form were accentuated by the tight-fitting Fereldan dress; her ears were two sharp sweet thorn-points, their lobes pale petals to suck. Her hands reached up to caress his neck and ears, drawing him hungrily down towards her, letting him bite her neck.

It was a shock to realise how desperate he was to have her there, to rip open her bodice with wolf’s claws, feast upon her buds and blooms, rut into her on the moonlit ridge round the rotunda; chase her naked over its sloping cylinder and fall down, fly down, fall down on to Skyhold’s grass, ecstatic, breathless and entwined.

The magic to thrust into her was in the palms of his hands, a hot itch in his fingers; mead sang on his tongue.

With breath too fast and cheeks too hot for dignity – they were _in public_ after all – he released her, stepping back. He longed to ask – _did that feel real?_ – when he looked down to the battlements below them.

A small clutch of elves were standing there – stalwart Ithiren, and wide-eyed Nissa, and others from the camp, the Warden Caronel, and to his horror Hawen and Deshanna – and the words died on his tongue.

It took all of his self-possession not to issue a haughty response entirely inappropriate to the situation.

Apparently, Hawen thought the same, for he only called up to them: “Divine Victoria has asked whether we would play another Dalish dance. We wondered if you would care to join us. The first was well received.”

Virla’s blissful, half-dazed smile (one he hoped to create on her face many, many, many times) creased into mirth. With a fleeting wink at his own stiff expression, she composed her face before turning around.

“That would be delightful, Keeper,” she said, leaning over the wall to bow her head to Deshanna. “Apparently, my dancing is even up to ancient standards. Keeper Deshanna, thank you for all the lessons!”

He’d take his cue from her and keep the merriment intact. “I believe I said it surpasses them,” he murmured, loud enough for Deshanna to hear. The woman still looked cool and distant, but it beat outright hostility.

Virla laughed. “Yes, but you don’t expect any of us to believe you when you say that, do you?”

“Regardless, it is true,” he declared, making her a graceful bow. “You are a beautiful dancer.”

****

“That last dance, the Orlesian one, were you deliberately exaggerating the movements to wind up Vivienne?”

“Perhaps a little,” he teased, shifting to lean more closely over her.

They were in the Fade, lying side by side on the bed in her old Skyroom room, the chamber of the Inquisitor. It was late, and later tonight he ought to venture out and hunt for souls. Alone – she was not ready yet to join him.

But somewhere out there, enticingly close at hand, was a memory of the battlements, the low stone wall, the roof of the rotunda. And she was in her own room, not the aravel. So for an hour, might he indulge his dreams?

“I have an intimate proposition to make,” he began, enjoying the way her eyes widened. “A rose-petal gown for you, black silk breeches for me. A chase across Skyhold’s rooftops. And then we lay together when I catch you.”

She stared at him for a few seconds. The heat of her gaze burned into him, as if questioning his boldness in proposing this when he had been so hesitant before. “Do not such things attract demons?”

“We can step into a fresh memory that no demons will have had time to colonise,” he said, feeling his muscles already beginning to tense with anticipation and lust. “If you wish.”

Virla bit her lip; she was shivering as well. “Like Haven, with no people about?”

He couldn’t remember if he’d told her that Sophiyel had been there – by his own permission. “Similar to that.”

“Then… I am willing… yes, my lord. Did you have a particular dress in – oh!”

She stood on top of the rotunda, vertigo on all four sides, a pale pink dot with petals barely covering her breasts, giant roses which never had bloomed since the Veil, with tearable softness… he hushed the growl within his throat. Eventually, they’d play this game with him as Wolf, cathartic for them both he hoped…

For now he must be man. He began to run across the courtyard, climbing the great steps three at a time.

****

He’d caught her in a corner by the stables, soft grass as he’d hoped, pinning her down to ravish her, her hair a waving banner of crimson he brushed away from her face. He’d taken his time over each bud and thorn, each stem and leaf and petal, and now he crushed the whole against the ground, inhaling her recollected scent.

She was warm, and sweet, and tender, his honey, his love, his rose… and he could make her gasp and plead as loudly as she wished because she lay upon her own within a room. Oh! – to wake up next to her and do this all again, in twisted sheets and damp, entangled bodies, impressing his scent upon her own, feeling… feeling…

It was good to be alive.

  



	26. Facade

Solas walked stiffly across the courtyard, towards the main stairway and towards the kiln room for breakfast: they were still clearing the Hall. Flying would have been swifter, but he needed to compose his thoughts.

There was no quick fix, no neat division of personality. One twin’s memories must wake, the other’s sink into the Beyond. What seemed so right and natural within the Fade – the pruning of the weeds that buds might grow – became, on rude awakening, the Veil’s decaying growths. Death becoming birth becoming death.

For the twelve hundred and thirty-nine years since the Conductor and the other Old God priests had turned the Golden City black, until the battle with the Nightmare, four weeks since, conserving souls by salvaging their virtue had been the task of the twin who lay beneath the ground – true Falon’Din – doubly banished to the Fade by Veil and lyrium. The waking twin – the Dread Wolf, Dirthamen – assumed him dead, broken when the orb was broken, yet kept chasing demons from the dreamers, a duty he’d deemed futile if not meaningless.

And now: two sets of memories; a single, grey, indifferent duty.

A sour taste filled his mouth, a nauseous revulsion of his own role in creating and sustaining this foul nightmare of a world. Images of dead and dying corpses obtruded on his vision, blanking out the shining, singing spirits that replaced them. A bitter draught, Void-tainted, distilled by a stone-crushed idealist.

He forced himself to see the beauty of the mountains, feel the cool spring air, remember Virla’s faith in him, the softness of her skin against his lips. _Four more days._ If he’d had the days right in his mind, this would have been their bonding day. Fear and longing warred within him: the terror of perceived deceit; the temptation to abscond with her as mistress; the dread of half-formed actions; the overriding, desperate urge for _fenedhis lasa_.

He hadn’t told her how, in Arlathan, he’d had a slave hired solely for that purpose… and never used her.

The woman had had pale skin, long blonde hair, and a sweet, reluctant, smile. Naturally he would have been found out if she had never had her services required – and so he’d hired another man, similar in girth and stature to himself, to stand within a covered, gold-leaf box, mouth gagged, and have his cock sucked, punctually at noon, through a well-placed, gilded, scrupulously polished, hole. Both were well compensated: with food; and sleeping arrangements; and lies; and complex segregation of relationships; and an unshakeable belief that they were partaking in a solemn, sacred ritual. One that many nobles copied, with or without the gilded box.

It had been _necessary,_ to convince the other Evanuris that he was not above the urges of the flesh.

Now he must demand himself turned honest, must fight against the terrifying, machinating urges of his mind.

To not be a monster. To not be a monster, in this cool, clear air, as Second of their clan, Clan Al’var.

And he would have to guide the First, guide Shaper Valta, in necessary preparation against the risk that he himself might die. They would have to salvage him, weed him from impurities, re-birth him as a spirit, pure.

His foot stopped, hovering above the broad stone step. He must remember they’d already done that once.

He must remember Caritas’ words, from that long-ago philosopher whose name meant Noble Purpose: the truly proud person is good, and as he is good, he is also rare. Pride is a crown of the virtues.

And what he’d said to Cassandra: Nature is, and always has been, grey. Every war has unintended victims.

He was not going to let himself become a victim. He’d been right. Unexamined immortality stagnated. This world was no nightmare; it was real. Arlathan could be approached – in careful, tortuous, asymptotic stages.

_Feel the ground, the breath in your lungs, fabric rustling against your skin. The first step is the hardest._

****

He was in the makeshift refectory, and she was there, in a corner by the flames, her breasts a warm, enticing curve above the table, beneath her uniform. Sweet ecstasy! She humbled pride. They needed each other as dry earth needed rain; soaked bodies warmth; as fire fuel; as flowers light; as lightning must lash the earth.

Lightning would not need to justify itself. Lightning would not continue to insist, to himself and her, that they were not defying Hawen, that a Dalish Keeper’s jurisdiction could not overrule his own within the Fade.

He’d drunk full measure in that single hour with Virlath last night, knowing it was love and not desire that took him thus. Love let him crush her into the grass, make the city glow again… she’d drawn him into the stables, coaxed him to rest back on the hay, and kissed right down the muscles of his chest and groin, sucked him halfway dry of colour… and then he’d had her turn and bend, breasts against the straw, elbows sunk into the bales, that he might kneel between her knees; and fuck her like the ancient wolf she wanted. A newly, deeply pleasurable angle, love bent under pride, Fade-soaked, incandescent, taut, crying out his first-sung name…

  * _Solas! Solas! Ah, ‘ma lath, ar isal’ma, ar isal’ma, ‘ma solas, ‘ma nehn!_



Solas forced his mind away, helped himself to a bowl of pork oat mash, ignored his reddening ears.

With careful breaths and careful movements, he proceeded towards the table where the others sat. 

He was not a spirit. He could manage sex, and death, and breakfast.

****

The conversation echoed around her as she spooned mash into her mouth. Josephine and Hawke, Vivienne and Cassandra and Lace and Dagna were so engrossed in plans to decorate the fortress for her wedding that none of them had realised she hadn’t said a word. Sera hadn’t either, but Sera was likely even more hungover than she was herself – elven physiology not noted for its tolerance for human-strength alcohol.

Virla kept smiling, trying not to nod in case it worsened the headache, or turn her head to where she knew he sat, at the other end with Cole and Maryden and Cullen. Every few seconds she thought again of him – chasing, crushing, thrusting; naked, blushing, proud, erect; his hands around her, on her, in her; his body dominating hers so that his swollen edhis entered her the way she’d watched wild animals make love; the suffocating, blinding depths of magic. She knew if she looked at him she’d burn. It was enough for now not to be sick.

She told herself she’d sat too near the fire.

“Very well, my dears,” said Vivienne, with unarguable finality. “We shall adopt my plan.”

Sera lifted her head from the table, made a cross-eyed face at Dagna, then crashed her head back down again.

“Could you go over it again?” asked Dagna, absently shredding leftover Rivaini banana bread on to her plate and rolling the crusts between her fingers. “A silver façade in honour of the Silver City, polished marble statues, something representing each of the nobles who sent funds to Skyhold. Then there was that bit in the middle where we’re going to build a giant ice tree in the main courtyard. How do we do the leaves?”

Vivienne sighed. “Darling, it is inconceivable you would be able to carry out that task so soon after developing your talents. The Champion and I will undertake that part. Perhaps you could assist with the polishing.”

“Why not let them try a few leaves?” asked Hawke, earning a grateful glance from Josephine and a worried one from Lace, whose hands were buried in thick fur gloves. “It’s not every week the Inquisitor gets married.”

“The Herald of Andraste,” corrected Vivienne with a sniff. “This will be an Andrastian ceremony. Most Holy told me that she had been persuaded to officiate at the ceremony.”

“That is the second ceremony,” said Cassandra. “The first ceremony will be according to traditional Dalish customs, conducted by Keeper Hawen in the garden courtyard. Virla is his First.”

Vivienne looked displeased. “And what does that mean? The Herald of Andraste is known to millions.”

“But she _is_ Dalish,” said Josephine, frowning. “Marriage is a personal act as well as a public one.”

“She is also a Comtesse of Kirkwall. Perhaps she should have a third ceremony there,” said Hawke, raising his glass to Virla in front of the Grand Enchanter, neatly forestalling another barbed response. “Free Marches style.”

Sera raised her head again, cackling. “Getting pissed and setting fire to things?”

“Two things you might actually know about, my dear,” said Vivienne, determined to maintain control of the conversation by any means necessary. “At least you would not be out of your depth at such an event.”

Hawke shrugged. “Varric is a good man for parties. Before the Exalted Council, he told me he was planning a surprise grand ball to welcome Comtesse Lavellan, a way to raise more money for the city.”

“I suppose that an elf raised to the nobility might be a symbol of hope for Kirkwall’s many slum dwellers,” mused Vivienne, as if she had only just thought of it.

Virla felt anger rising: at herself as well as Vivienne; and damped it down. She used to be able to swallow all those little barbs, secure in the knowledge that they needed her to close the rifts. But since Corypheus’ death, since the closing of the Breach, it was harder to remind people why she mattered.

“It is an Andrastian city still, despite the razing of its Chantry,” she said, earning an approving look from Josephine. “I should imagine that they would be more consoled by the presence of the Herald of Andraste.”

“I wonder why you never troubled to visit Kirkwall before you went… where did you go again, my dear?”

“Via Cumberland,” said Virla, taking a sip of water. “Like you, I have always been fascinated by Nevarra. What did you make of Tyrion Veneto, Grand Enchanter?”

Duchess Amalia’s representative had stayed for the banquet the previous night, leaving at dawn for his ship across the Waking Sea. Virla had been woken up by Josephine’s voice at the door, requesting her attendance as the Divine bade him farewell. Without the pounding headache, it might have been relief to wake – the dream room within the tower was empty: dead without Solas there. Now the room was full, and he was here, and Dagna was dangling icicles from bread, and with a few deft turns the conversation span back into civility.

For the first time she looked down the length of the table to where Solas sat, blank-faced, the emperor of death.

The god of death, the Master of the Fade, eating pork oat mash. She, his promised wife, a Free Marches noble. Deshanna in love with a city elf. Dwarven mages. Weird soul shit. Reality far stranger than her dreams.

  * Truth is not the end, but a beginning.



_Flemeth._ Virla flinched, blood draining from her head, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Solas turn and look. In her distended vision he seemed more than usually lupine: sharp pale ears above a pale grey tunic. She couldn’t stop thinking about the night, dancing, sleep, the hour of passion before the hours of solitude that followed. Turned on her front, rubbing naked against the bales, her body and her will completely dominated.

She remembered how sick she’d felt, the first time she’d heard Flemeth voice pronounce him _Dread Wolf._

It didn’t matter. The blood rushed back to her face. She wanted him to do it again. Again, and again.

Shreds of dreams and memories obtruded – of things she had consented to, drawn from her own mind; or not, that demons made her see: like a she-wolf crouching underneath him, hands bound to her knees; above him, bare breasts swaying as she rode; or splayed atop the war table, his tongue and fingers in between her legs…

Politely excusing herself, she fled for the privacy of her room, and locked and warded all the doors and windows.

****

She hadn’t been able to avoid everyone all day, or sate herself with magic or a chair. Far from it. No sooner had she laid back on her bed – heart racing, cheeks as pink as Antivan roses (from a guilty glance in her hand mirror), remembering with wonder their first kiss upon the balcony, and how reserved and passionate he’d been, still was – than there came a gentle knock at the door.

It had been Josephine seeking her, and although her delicacy forbade her to intrude, Virla felt obliged to meet her shortly in a room that they’d prepared for making clothes. Bales of fabric, a creamy Orlesian rug on the floor, emblazoned in gold, and the Inquisition’s best seamstress ready to command. Solas had mentioned yesterday the sketches he’d done, and asked Lady Montilyet to provide support to Virla in whatever way she wished. Today he’d effaced himself, intending to spend the day with soldiers at the camps, building new relationships.

From his grim look at breakfast, she’d suspected he wanted time alone, perhaps soar into the clouds on Zephyr.

It was hard for both of them to get used to all the people here, and she was glad he had persuaded her to stay at Skyhold all this day. Tomorrow she would travel by eluvian to Kirkwall – not that Vivienne knew that yet – and collect Varric, Dorian and Bull, and Fenris or whoever else Hawke wanted to invite. Indeed, while they pinned her up in silk and satin fabrics over her gown, there’d been a firm rap on the door, heralding the Champion. Last night they’d shared their plans with him, quiet in between the dances, and he’d seemed willing enough to champion the Herald through the Crossroads for a second time. She’d wondered if he’d had second thoughts.

But no – this time he was Nightingale’s messenger, hoping Virla could conjure an excuse for Leliana to slip away from Sister Clemency and the long list of petitions. Which, of course, she could. Hawke and Leliana come and gone, the next to arrive had been Sera bearing lunch – a huge basket full of banana bread and plums.

Each plum bore a likeness of the Dread Wolf’s ass, carved and accurate to scale. Josephine temporarily dismissed the seamstress while Virla laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, comforted by Sera’s sheer insanity. The archer ran away, delighted with her exploit. Virla remembered she needed to talk with Josephine about scheduling, about the change of plans that meant the second ceremony would be moved to Val Royeaux.

“The plums are delicious,” she said, peeling one free of its carving and placing it on a plate for her friend.

Josephine sighed. “There are times when I despair of Sera. What does she think she will achieve?”

“She made me laugh,” said Virla, shrugging. Josephine rolled her eyes, but accepted the plum, neatly slicing it.

Virla started to explain the proposed change of plans, but the Antivan held up a hand to stop her. “Messere Solas has already informed me about the situation following the Dalish ceremony,” she said, her cheeks darkening.

“You mean the Andrastian blessing taking place in Val Royeaux, not Skyhold?”

“That, to be sure,” said Josephine, her hands playing nervously with the pearl-handled fruit knife. “Has he… have you two spoken about what happens… in between, before you leave for Val Royeaux? He did say you had.”

Virla stiffened. She knew Josie well enough to recognise when she was embarrassed. “What did he tell you, Josie?” she asked, a trace of the old Inquisitor’s voice making the request a command.

“Ah! It was simply that in ancient elven traditions, a bonding is sometimes… celebrated in physical fashion.”

So he _had_ told her. Somehow in their conversations, he’d omitted to let Virla know that he had planned to share this secret with another. But if Sera knew, it was scarcely going to stay secret. “It’s all right, Josie,” she said, stifling a sigh. “You don’t have to pretend he meant dancing. Can we make sure my dress is, um, not too complicated?”

Once they’d realised neither would exploit the other’s discomfort, Josephine was able to make many discreet, practical suggestions to the seamstress. They were nearly finished when Ithiren burst in, his hair and eyes wild.

“Thank the Creators!” he said. “Hawen and Deshanna are gone! No-one knows where. Ema’s going into labour.”

  



	27. Travail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos so far. We're now three-quarters of the way through the story. Hope you are still enjoying it!

Virla crouched down on the floor, washing her hands in the fresh pot of water Taniel had brought. She’d sent the woman out, some minutes previously, to find Ithiren and tell him the good news. From the quick nod then shake of Taniel’s head as she’d returned, she deduced that Ithiren was waiting, but that there was still no news of Keeper Hawen or Keeper Deshanna. Virla forced herself to keep going. It had been a long night.

She’d doused the veilfire brazier an hour ago, and observed the new mother and her child in the dim light that filtered through the narrow window. The babe was not yet suckling, so she showed Ema how to compress her breast and stroke the tiny cheek, encouraging the child to latch on properly. She’d helped Deshanna with enough births in Clan Lavellan to know the secret signs: the waving of hands that meant _please feed me, now!_

This was work for a Clan’s First, particularly if she were female. Keepers were responsible for death and burial, and bonding, but Firsts must know how to assist a woman labouring, and be there to help her in the days that followed. Since Ithiren hadn’t yet told Ema that the Keepers were missing, she’d instructed everyone yesterday not to tell her, and told the worried father-to-be to seek out Solas and see if he could help find the Keeper.

The child was beginning to feed properly now. Virla smiled. “I am glad I was here. He’s a good size, Ema.”

“Is he? It’s been a long time since our clan had any children. You said you’d helped at a lot of births.”

“Yes, four or five in Clan Lavellan. Some here at Skyhold. I think Ithiren didn’t realise how long it might take. When he came running to find me yesterday I thought I would find you almost with your babe in arms!”

“I’m glad too, First,” said Taniel, pushing strands of white hair back into her bun. “The last birth I assisted was Nissa’s, the year after the old Keeper, _Falon’Din enasal enaste_ , died. Creators, it must be over eighteen years.”

Ema looked tenderly at her son, his face free of the dark thorned vallaslin that marked her own. The woman had chosen to honour Elgar’nan in memory of her father Taerahal, the Keeper who had died when she was six and her late brother Valorin a babe in arms – like this nephew he would never meet. _You are not alone now, Ema._

“He has my nose,” said Ema, her voice full of wonder. “And his eyes are beautiful. Such a dark blue.”

“They may change colour as he gets older,” said Virla, tucking blankets around them both to keep them warm.

Ema smiled. “Where is Ithiren? I should like to introduce our son to the clan, and have him named by Keeper.”

“He is waiting with the halla by the aravels,” said Taniel. She turned to Virla. “Shall I bring him here, First?”

“I will bring him,” said Virla, seizing the opportunity for a few minutes to herself. Through the long, spring night, she’d thrust the memory of those nine eggs in the Fade – and her own strange pregnancy – far, far away.

  * _They must be hatched within the Fade. At least three months from laying the clutch…_



In the wild, women would endure the pains of labour in a glade, out of sound of the camp, only retreating there if the forest became unsafe. Thus it had been easy to persuade Ema into a room in the servants’ tower, away from the clan, and away from any of Divine Victoria’s guests – _her_ guests – that might complain about noises in the night. A dark room: the morning sunshine blinded her as she turned the corner halfway down the steps.

Her foot slipped, missing the tread, and she found herself steadied up against Solas’ body. His expression was more than usually grim, his eyes raking her face. “Virlath,” he said. “How fares it with Emalien?”

“She has a son. Both healthy. A few complications, but nothing I had not seen before. I was looking for Ithiren,” she reported, as if they were on the field. “And you? Have you located Hawen yet, or Deshanna?”

He shook his head. “They are nowhere in Skyhold, yet the guards did not see either of them leave.”

“They might have been disguised – or shifted shape? We know Hawen can. Maybe Deshanna also could?”

“Indeed. I tried to track them through the Fade, but could not find any spirits who had yet encountered them.”

She gripped his arm, frustrated. “They’ve been gone all night. Where would they go? _Why_ would they go?”

“I can only conjecture. The last person who saw either of them was Nissa, yesterday morning. She saw Hawen sitting on the steps of the aravel, whittling this flute. She thinks Deshanna had gone to visit the Wycome elves.”

Virla blinked down at the flute. “It appears ordinary enough. There is no sign of a struggle anywhere?”

“No sign. Sera swears this is not a prank of her making. I spoke with Harding, and your scouts have been alerted, as well as those of mine that I might reasonably trust with this task. I will track them in the Fade again tonight.”

“Why not now? They might be in danger!”

He looked away, frowning. “It seems unlikely. Most likely they wished privacy to discuss our situation.”

“Maybe I should delay my journey to Kirkwall,” said Virla. She added, with a sigh of regret: “Though… I admit I should like to see our friends there again. Dorian’s sending crystal was destroyed in the recent fighting, but when Leliana and I spoke with Varric on his crystal, he was greatly looking forward to his visit here.”

“It is quick to travel by eluvian. I do not think it necessary to delay your visit.” He paused. “Have you eaten?”

She made a face at him. “I have had my hands full… with a new-born baby! Let’s find Ithiren. Then I can eat.”

Half-an-hour later, they were back in the tower room, with all the clan around them – a small gathering of fifteen, the clan’s numbers depleted from its strength twenty years ago. Ithiren was explaining to Emalien that the Keeper was not in Skyhold: reassuring her as Solas had suggested, saying he would most likely return soon.

“But who will tell the child’s name to the clan?” Ema’s eyes flickered over Virla, standing close by the bed, to Solas at the back. She whispered something in Ithiren’s ear, and he nodded.

“Since Keeper is not here,” he said to Virla: “We would like Fen’Harel to name our son, and you to present him.”

Whether it was a fear of offending the god, or an even-handed wish to placate both mages, Virla wasn’t sure. She smiled, knowing at least that Emalien was genuinely grateful to her, and took the baby back into her arms.

“They wish you to name their son,” she said, catching Solas’ eye as she made her way through the room.

He nodded. “An important task,” he said, inclining his head to the child’s parents. Virla felt the invisible, fragile flow of magic as he closed his eyes and reached out into the Veil, as gently as he could. His hands stayed firmly behind his back, not wishing to give the impression of spellcasting lest it frighten those assembled.

“Taralen,” he said, his voice resonating around the room. “Born in Tarasyl’an Te’las, grandson of Keeper Taerahal, son of Ithiren and Emalien, I greet you. May you always walk the path of wisdom.”

It seemed to Virla as if he’d wanted to say more, but feared misinterpretation. In any case, the name was unexceptional – well-chosen, even, for Emalien looked pleased at the mention of her father, and the similarity in the name given to his grandson. She smiled up at him, then down at baby Taralen, full of milk and drowsing off to sleep, and wondered how it would feel to hold their own child in her arms.

****

She was still wondering that as they set out towards the eluvian for Kirkwall, trying to distract herself from the vertigo that threatened to drown her again. Yet, with Hawke and Caronel either side of her, it would be hard for her to fall. What would it be like, to bring a child here, to learn the ancient mysteries along with them?

Perhaps it would simply emphasise the gulf in age between herself and Solas.

Virla thought through their plans for the day. Valya was looking after Zephyr and Revas while Solas maintained watch over their clan. Caronel would be bringing back Dorfassan, if his griffon had recovered sufficiently to travel; or would stay in Kirkwall if not. Hawke was here because of where the eluvian would take them: into his friend Merrill Alerion Sabrae’s house. They’d agreed that with Varric: although Merrill had met Virla briefly a couple of years ago in Kirkwall, it would be more reassuring to her if her old friend the Champion came as well.

Hawke spoke suddenly, interrupting her train of thought: “Was there any news of the Keepers before we left?”

“No,” said Virla. She shrugged, and added: “Solas believes they are deep in conversation somewhere.”

“From what Merrill told me, in Elvhenan, these things took days,” said Hawke, with a smile.

Virla nodded, frowning. “True, but Deshanna barely left Joswen’s side, before we arrived in Wycome. It seems most unlike her to have brought him and his brother to Skyhold, then to disappear like this!”

“I had breakfast with Joswen and Athras this morning,” said Caronel. “We were talking about the changes in Wycome. The hahren was worried that Keeper Deshanna would not return there. He seems fond of her.”

Hawke hummed thoughtfully. “If there was an attraction there, would it cause difficulties with your people?”

“With some, certainly,” said Virla. “At least he is an elf. It would be more difficult were he human. An elf might join the Dalish, just as Solas has done. I have never heard of a human who was accepted into a Dalish clan.”

The Champion rubbed at his beard, his brow furrowed. “The Sabrae clan accepted Feynriel… for a time.”

“Feynriel, the Dreamer?” she asked, and he nodded. “I assumed he was elven from his name.”

“His mother Arianni was Dalish. His father was an Antivan merchant – human. I met them both in Kirkwall. But he is not really an example of Dalish tolerance. Arianni was not allowed to raise him in the clan.”

They kept walking at a measured pace, Hawke’s long stride only partly making up for his disadvantage in this otherworldly landscape. She’d warned Caronel that their non-elf companions would feel as if they were climbing a hill in mist, that they would not perceive the vibrant sapphires, emeralds and crimsons of the trees and sky.

The next to speak was Caronel, halfway across another floating bridge. In the distance, Virla could just make out the eluvian they sought. “Do you know an elven woman called Lanaya? Commander Cullen asked if I knew her.”

“She is Keeper of a Dalish clan that travels the Brecilian Forest,” said Virla. “I last met her at the Arlathvhen, the gathering of clans, two years ago. Her clan fought in the Battle of Denerim with the Hero of Ferelden.”

“Ferelden’s Wardens seem to die heroic deaths,” said Hawke, with a grimace. “Look after yourself, Caronel.”

“The Hero was a prince of Orzammar,” objected the Warden, hefting his staff. “Hardly a true Fereldan.”

“Hawke was thinking of Alistair Theirin, who died to allow us to escape from the Fade,” said Virla, and the Champion nodded. “A son of King Maric. I suppose it would be hard to be more Fereldan than that.”

“He died saving the world,” said Hawke. “I suppose… he _did_ die, didn’t he? After Corypheus, nothing is certain.”

“I have no reason to suppose he survived,” said Virla, staring up into the rainbow sky, heart filled with sorrow.

Should she ask Solas, what became of him, or let dead princes lie? And what of Erasthenes, or Felix Alexius? And what about her own parents? Had he cradled their spirits in his ancient hands? Might her father or mother be somewhere in the Silver City? How, when all the world lay open in your hands, did you decide what best to do?

They fell into silence until they neared the Brecilia-Kirkwall medley of trees, steel ravens and ancient elven grave markers that Solas had described. Two elven statues – twin warriors – stood guarding either side.

“That’s it ahead,” said Virla. “Hawke, you go first. Varric should have told Merrill to expect us around now.”

The man stopped on the final bridge, his eyes drawn to the grave markers, their broad flat stones raised up on perpendicular supports. He looked perplexed. “Virla, the Arlathvhens are only every ten years, right?”

She laced her hands behind her back, stifling a yawn. Exhaustion was catching up with her. “Yes, what of it? The last was in late 9:42 Dragon. The one before was in 9:32, delayed from the previous year due to the Blight. ”

“Deshanna said she’d met Keeper Marethari at the Arlathvhen. But if it was only two years ago, she can’t have.”

His words made no sense. “Why not?”

“Because we killed Keeper Marethari eight years ago, in a cave – a shrine – on Sundermount.”

Virla heard her own voice from far away. “You didn’t tell me that you’d killed a Dalish Keeper.”

“You didn’t know? The Dalish didn’t know that Marethari died? Her clan knew!”

“Did Varric know? He never told me. It wasn’t in the Tale of the Champion. I must have read it a dozen times!”

“He knew,” said Hawke with a sigh. “He was there. Me, and Merrill, and Aveline, and Varric.”

Fury overtook her. She glared at him. “I was with him before the Arlathvhen. He never even mentioned it!”

“He would have wanted to spare Merrill’s feelings. She’s never forgiven herself. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

She was trembling, incandescent with rage. Varric – her _friend_ – had killed a Dalish Keeper. “What happened?”

“It was a terrible misunderstanding. Those markers – there were six around the cave. And an altar of Dumat, which had held a powerful pride demon. Marethari thought it would break through the eluvian and take Merrill as its victim. To prevent it, she imprisoned it in her own body. She said we had to kill her to ensure its death.”

“She became an abomination?” asked Caronel, with a shudder. Virla fought for composure.

Hawke nodded, his expression sad. “Did you see them at the Arlathvhen two years ago? Clan Sabrae, I mean.”

“I can’t remember… The clan might have decided to keep it secret – a shame, a curse on all of them. It is a terrible thing for a Keeper to allow themselves to be possessed. Worse, even, than Zathrian’s blood magic.”

Virla stared down into the abyss, remembering the Nightmare. Then she gave herself a shake. If Deshanna thought she’d met Marethari, then either Deshanna must have been mistaken, or she’d met an imposter. Yet, if an imposter, she must have known about the Arlathvhen somehow. One of Solas’ agents, carefully disguised? Yes… maybe that was it. Or had Hawke heard Deshanna wrong, and it was the previous gathering?

“How do Dalish Keepers decide when and where to gather for the Arlathvhen?” asked Caronel.

“I don’t know,” said Virla, wondering why she’d never asked that question herself. “I’m not a Keeper! Some keep in contact with each other, using trusted messengers. But if a clan wished to stay out of contact, to hide…”

She felt Hawke’s eyes on her, quietly appraising. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I should not have mentioned this. Not here, at least. It would be best not to remind Merrill about it. I know that she still suffers nightmares…”

“I will need to tell the Keepers,” said Virla, interrupting him. “I can’t believe you all kept this from me!”

“None of us liked to think about it,” said Hawke. “Please don’t bring this up with Merrill – or at least, not now.”

“I understand,” said Virla, belatedly recognising the folly of her anger. _Another lie of omission; and who was she to condemn?_

She approached the eluvian – and at her touch, it shimmered alive. A dim interior pulsed on the other side, with wooden floorboards and a single bed; large tomes; and something waiting for them.

Hawke looked relieved, and stepped through. “Go on,” she said to Caronel. “I need a minute.”

****

When she pushed through, still shaky a few minutes later, feeling the eluvian close behind her – and wondering if Solas still listened – she was surprised to find only the Dalish woman there, and an odd smell of burning.

“Inquisitor Lavellan!” cried Merrill, jumping as if startled. “Now, Hawke has gone to find Varric, and the Warden his griffon. They said you were tired, and might want to rest. Oh! Shall I do more hearthcakes while we wait?”

She waved vaguely at the bed, and Virla sank on to it gratefully, too tired to pretend formality. Either the woman had no idea that she was to be bonded soon to Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf – or she knew and didn’t care.

That the woman had killed her own Keeper – she found she didn’t care about that either, now. Hawke and Varric were good people, Merrill was a good person. Everything was fine. Everything was well in the world.

  



	28. Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was lovely to get such positive comments last chapter; they really brightened up my week. Whether new to this series or old acquaintances, I hope you all enjoy this next one!

Virla was waking, bleary eyes blinking, puzzled to see that Solas was there. She looked around, taking in the shimmering eluvian, high wooden ceiling and sparse, cheap furnishings that reminded her of where she was.

“You fell asleep on Merrill’s bed, _vhenan,_ ” said Solas, a smile playing around his lips.

She pushed herself upright, frowning up at him. “Why are you here? I thought you were in Skyhold.”

“The Keepers have returned. Since your presence here was tangible, this close to an eluvian, I decided to accompany you today, on your return through the Crossroads. I am glad you had a chance to sleep.”

“I was tired,” said Virla, remembering the night spent supporting Emalien. “Where had the Keepers gone?”

“It was as I thought,” said Solas. “They had shifted into birds and flown east from the Frostbacks, to somewhere they might speak in peace. To good effect: Hawen has convinced Deshanna to look kindly on our bonding.”

Relief pervaded her body. To be bonded to this man, this noble god – that was what she wanted.

Before they could speak more, the room was filled with people – Hawke and Merrill, Dorian and Bull, Caronel and Fenris, all crowded into Merrill’s bedroom, smiling to see her woken and reunited with her lover. With a graceful gesture, Solas took her hand and led them through the eluvian: a procession as if for a Dalish wedding, over mystical floating bridges and abyssal drops that only an expert storyteller could do justice to.

Solas tightened his grasp on her fingers, as if he feared a return of her vertigo.

“I have every confidence in your ability,” he said. “Those who soar can master their fear of the Void.”

Virla looked forwards, to the wolves that heralded Skyhold’s eluvian. Once, she glanced backwards to the people following them. She ignored the drops to the sides. Her companions wouldn’t let her fall.

****

Skyhold, and it was Summerday. A large crowd outside. Time, when she thought about it, had passed in a blur, the last days of Eluviesta made perfect by the company of friends. And now, as she dressed in rich red velvet – a gown she’d made herself, with complicated Dalish stitching round the hem – she wondered why it had all been so simple. The fear she’d held at bay was prowling round the barriers: a wolf around the camp.

A soft knock on the door disturbed her musings.

“Come in,” she called, fixing a small bouquet of blood lotus flowers in her belt with two hair grips either side.

It was Solas. He’d only left her side the last three days to sleep or dress, but they’d always been in company.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, inclining his head to her. “It is time, _‘ma lath._ ”

“ _Venavis_ ,” said Virla, switching to elven, her heart thumping hard against her chest. “Is everybody here?”

He chuckled. “There are many waiting for us. Whom do you mean in particular?”

She thought quickly. “Radonis.”

The smirk died on his lips, and his face darkened like thunder. “The Archon of Tevinter? I was not aware that you had sent him an invitation. I cannot think he is worthy to be present here.”

“I spoke to him in dreams,” said Virla. “We want to win the war with the Qunari, do we not?”

“And we shall win,” said Solas, still not troubling to hide his displeasure. “But we do not need Tevinter as an ally. The legend of the Inquisition – your marriage to myself – armies shall flock to your cause.”

She shook her head, crossing her bedroom floor to close the door again. Unusually, he’d left it open. “It will not be that simple. Nothing in these worlds is ever simple. You are not that simple. That is why I invited the Archon of Tevinter. And Calpernia, of course.”

“Calpernia of the Venatori?” His voice was a menacing whisper. “Now why would you invite her?”

Virla laughed, but there was no music in it. “When we are bonded, will you always dispute my decisions?”

“When they are wrong,” said Solas. He captured her hand as it reached for the handle of the door, enfolding her fingers in the cold palm of his hand, adding, softly: “You would not expect anything less of me.”

She decided to change tactics. Solas’ physical strength was greater than her own, and if she wanted to make these last few private minutes count, brute force was not the best way to achieve that.

Instead, she feigned submission. “ _Ir abelas._ I simply wished to test your faith in me. Please… close the door.”

It caught him off-balance for a moment, torn between the contrite smile she gave him, and whatever compulsion drove him to insist that it was time. “They are waiting, _vhenan_ ,” he said, indicating her bride-clothes.

“They are my people, Solas,” said Virla, reaching up to stroke his cheek. That was also colder than usual, despite his heavy gilded armour and the mild spring morning. “I am sure my staff can entertain them while they wait. It is surely not too much for me to ask for a few minutes’ privacy with you before we face the crowds.”

Unable to dispute this, he turned on his heel, releasing her hand, and shut the door, leaning against it.

She picked up a hair grip from a shelf, twisting it in her hands. “I need to know. I must be sure. Do you really want to go through with this? In front of all those people?”

He shifted restlessly. “They are your people. We are all here to honour you, Virlath.”

Radonis and Calpernia likely weren’t – but that was not the argument to pursue. Common ground preferable.

“They are not your people.” She swallowed, remembering Abelas. It was best to have this discussion now, before the ceremony; before they were surrounded by the crowds. “Your people are dead, or in the Fade.”

“That… is true,” he said, anger twisting to sorrow. “But you have always considered spirits people.”

“Not always,” she said. “Your way of looking at the world is interesting, but flawed. Watching – judging – every move the mortals make, instead of being able to be part of it. That is why I made the Silver City.”

The anguish in his eyes intensified. “A home for spirits… but not all spirits. Some of us...”

Behind her back, a hair grip might become a weapon: staff or dagger. “So you admit you are a spirit?”

He stiffened, a mask across the face that must be clear as moonlight in her mind. Unsure if she knew; cursed by a nature that scorned contrition, confession and compromise. _Pride,_ she thought. “When the Veil falls…”

Virla tightened her hold on the grip, and her emotions. “Do you still intend that, then?”

“It was always intended,” he said, sombre, and she knew it was correct. “But this time we will survive the fall. Provided that you bond with me today. Summerday is sacred. Give your friends a final celebration.”

Her stomach churned – yet this was information she must have. Betrayal called for anger. She glared at him. “You intend to breach the Veil… today? Why… why would you tell me that?”

“You know what it is to make the hardest choices. Help me willingly, and more lives will be saved.”

“Meaning that… if I refuse to help, more lives will be lost? That is a terrible choice, Solas.”

The grimness deepened. “Sometimes terrible choices are all that remain.”

She’d walked into that one. Drawing from her memories, she sighed: “Why is my help necessary?”

His movements were stiff and painful to watch, as he walked away from the door, his aura swirling. Taller than she remembered; older, more severe – as if drawn from a painting of the artist as a stern, demanding master.

“You know what happens when the Veil is breached,” he explained. “Spirits sucked through rifts are maddened.”

“They cannot maintain their purpose,” she said, holding his gaze as fiercely as she’d clung to life, when the Anchor’s power threatened sanity. “Carried to annihilation on an overwhelming tide of magic.”

“Crushed against the Earth. Swifter than a falcon’s flight, so must the destruction of the Veil be swift.”

“Won’t that shatter the Earth as well? Built as the unchanging world, it resists the Fade.”

He nodded, and for a moment in the gleam of his eyes she could almost believe she saw the ghost of her kind lover. “But, if you consent, your City may become a refuge. It lies far beyond the Veil, existing only in the Fade.”

She took a breath, then pointed at the door. “What will happen to – Cassandra, say?”

His words were a faint murmur. “That depends on you.”

“Meaning… what?”

“If you willingly participate and guide them in the ritual, she will find her way to safety, with all those whose souls are strong and pure. If not, the spirit of faith within her will be perverted. She will become a monster.”

“An abomination?”

“The Chantry’s term for it. I would say… forbidden. Her nature will be cruel, and proud – seeking only power for herself. Yet even that is futile, for in the raw chaos that follows, all will be destroyed. Domains of demons…”

“What if I do not consent?” Her voice was harsh, and loud. “I know what your rituals consist of. Blood, and sex, and mind control! Tell me that you never controlled my mind, nor contemplated doing so to gain your ends.”

“I… cannot,” he said, then, as if conscious that he had strayed too far from his own script, stood tall. “ _Vhenan,_ we cannot tarry any longer. Either bond with me, and help me in this ritual, or your own soul will be lost.”

She raised an eyebrow, saying quietly: “And yours?”

Solas took a moment before he spoke. Then he bowed his head, as if in defeat: “Mine is lost already.”

“I will not believe that,” she insisted, clasping his right hand in her free one. “I will intercede for you.”

He stared too long at the door, then back at her. “To whom?” he asked, his voice cracking. “There are no gods.”

Suddenly, the door crashed open, and a breathless Hawke and Morrigan ran in, closely followed by Solas, a gauntlet scraping the wood. They stared at the Solas already in the room, then back at the man behind them.

“How can this be?” exclaimed Morrigan. “I did not expect to see two likenesses of you, Fen’Harel.”

“One of them must be a demon,” said Hawke. “But which one?”

“Maybe they should both be killed,” said Morrigan, glaring from one to the other.

“This is a Spirit of Pride,” said Virla in Common, holding up the hand she held. “I knew I was in the Fade.”

“Maker be praised,” said Hawke. “When you didn’t wake, I knew we had to break into your dream.”

The spirit’s will battered against her own,  seeking to flow back into its most familiar form – the seven-eyed giant demon. “You have not injured me yet,” she said to it, tears in her eyes. “You do not need to be a demon!”

Morrigan scoffed at that. “You think, because this is **your** dream, that you can prevent it turning, Inquisitor? How… proud of you. **I** am not prepared to take such risks.”

“You snatch at actions like a fool,” cried Solas, the Solas who had just come in. “Why not let the spirit live?”

“Because it is a demon! You heard Virla… _Pride._ ”

“And I, of all of you, should know how best to conduct myself within the Fade. Have I not spent millennia walking the paths? How many nights have you spent in the Fade, witch?”

Flemeth’s daughter turned on him. “You promised you would set me free, and yet the geas remains!”

Hawke stepped in between them: one hand on Morrigan’s lace-draped shoulder, the other on Solas’ gilded forearm. He spoke with a ferocity Virla had seldom seen in him: “This is no place to fight among ourselves.”

“What did the spirit tell you, Virla?” asked Solas, talking over Morrigan. Hawke leapt back as if the armour burnt.

“I told her the truth,” said the spirit, its head held high. Virla held on to its hand, as if by physical proximity she might preserve its purpose; the grip clutched in her other fist. “She promised she would intercede for me.”

Morrigan threw her hands up into the air, shrugging off Hawke’s grasp, and driving the base of her staff into the floor. Her fury seemed to expand around the room, as if each person there was measured and found wanting.

“You made a bargain with a creature of the Fade,” said Morrigan to Virla, her tone scathing.

Virla sighed. The tension in the room was building as each person’s insecurities were laid out bare. “No.”

Morrigan stared at their joined hands. “You gave it reassurances. In this place, that gives it power over you.”

“I see that you have learned something from the Well of Sorrows,” said Solas to Morrigan. His eyes, as he glanced around the room, were calculating. Yet when they fell on Virla herself, fury smouldered in them.

It reminded her of his anger all those years ago, in Villa Maurel, when she’d nearly died to an assassin. But nobody had flung a bolt of fire or ice, not yet – and while the fragile peace held here, hope lingered.

“Why did you wish to plead for it?” asked Hawke into the perilous silence. “Why not simply kill it?”

“Why did you not kill the spirit who took the form of Divine Justinia? Because it was helping.” Too late she realised her mistake, and looked around the room. No guarantees. How could she test all four of them?

Hawke seized on her words. “But how could it be helping, when it took you prisoner inside its dream?”

Solas – the new one – thinned his lips. “A good point. Perhaps there are more demons here.”

“He means us,” said Morrigan to Hawke. “Very well, **Solas** ,” she spat, giving the last word full emphasis, “Since you are determined to mistrust me, and Virla to take the part of demons, I see no reason to remain here.”

“Morrigan, wait,” said Virla, turning to the spirit, still – through her efforts – maintaining Solas’ form. “I may need your help. I must be being held prisoner by something, for this is my dream, and I cannot wake up.”

“That is correct,” said the spirit and the new Solas, in perfect synchronicity. Virla shivered.

“Do you know who it is?” asked Virla, directing her questions to the one she had determined was a spirit. It had been with her since she fell asleep, pretending to be Solas. Only a spirit could have been there so swiftly.

“I cannot say,” said the spirit. She felt the pull against her will again, the thrum of lightning seeking Fade-flesh.

“What can you say?” said Solas. His tone was deliberately gentle, and Virla felt him add his will to her own, weakening the pull of the Earth, seeking to assist the spirit. Something else began to pull against them both.

“It is not a single entity,” said the spirit, with apparent reluctance. “Many, working together.”

Solas frowned. “Are all within this dream, or are some working from beyond the Veil?”

“I… cannot say,” said the spirit. Its face was rapidly deepening in colour, new eyes flickering in its forehead.

Virla focused harder, imagining her will as diamond: solid, unbroken. This was a new kind of magical experience – a silent battle of wills with no visible effect except the changes in the form of the… _demon._

Where magic had been balanced, it was suddenly forced out of joint. With a roar, the spirit grew and grew, its twisted horns and mountainous shoulders sparking violet lightning. Armour distended into veins and muscles; six of seven eyes glowed red. Claws imprisoned Virla’s hand, and as it dragged her through the Fade to Skyhold’s Great Hall, midnight black fur sprouted from each limb; white fur from her own. Screams emerged as howling.

The Dread Wolf spoke in Solas’ voice: “Now, at last, is time, _vhenan_. Now we shall be bonded.”

  



	29. Premonition

For the sixth or seventh time, Solas felt out through the Fade. The eluvian she’d used was nestled in a quiet corner of a room in Kirkwall’s alienage. _Merrill’s bedroom_ , so Hawke had said. This far away, it was difficult to feel anything but life signs. Strange, then, that in a city, the eluvian’s hinterland felt so… dead.

It was harder than usual to maintain the connection. Something to do with the composition of the rock?

_Or something else?_

He ran his hand absently over spines of ancient tomes, as if their leather skin could ever match the softness of his lover’s lips and flesh. At least she would be back soon. _Three days until..._ Within the high-ranged bookshelves of his new domain were several false sections, concealing a bottle of sack mead provided by Baron Desjardins; crystal glasses on a silver platter; nuts and sugared almonds in case he required sustenance between meals. Almonds he might place, if so desired, in a complicated pattern on Virlath’s creamy skin. Or mead…

  * _rough tongue dragged up, licking juices_



“My apologies, Lady Montilyet,” said Solas, as a delicate cough from Josephine brought his attention back to their surroundings. “You were talking of the Summerday ceremony in the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux.”

Josephine raised an eyebrow. “If this is a difficult time, messere, I should be happy to postpone this discussion until later. I am aware that Clan Al’var awaits eagerly for any news of its Keeper, and of Keeper Deshanna.”

He nodded slowly, distractedly, intuition gnawing at him. “Indeed, I am finding it difficult to concentrate.”

The Antivan rose to go, but at a frown and a curt gesture, sat down sharply on her chair again. Conscious he had been less civil than he expected of himself, he tried to make amends, turning fully away from the shelves and clamping his hands behind his back. No leather, no tomes, no thoughts of empty mist. Or demons…

 _Why do you always fear the worst?_

“If you might spare a half-hour tomorrow morning as well, when I might be more able to give these matters the attention they deserve…” he said, then paused, waiting for her acknowledgement.

“Certainly, messere,” said Josephine. “You do not wish me to leave?”

  * _Josephine is sitting there when they come. Tendrils. Varric. Kirkwall. Fade._



It was rare now he foresaw the future. Once, the paths had been as bright as gold, as clear as crystal lyrium. Unforbidden. Solas shivered. “No. I should be glad of the company. I… do you drink mead, Lady Montilyet?”

At her bemused acquiescence he retrieved the honeyed liquor and poured them each a single measure.

  * _Time to drink it. Not much more. Wait. You need to hear this first._



“My thanks,” he said, taking the seat behind the desk. The mead was sweet and sickly, each sip a second closer to the time told tenfold, spirits sighing sorrow from the Fade. Futile to tell Josephine; she would think him mad.

“Is there anything particular that concerns you?”

“Yes,” he said, ignoring the growing whispers of the spirits. “I have not been able to uncover any trace of the Keepers. If they do not return… I fear my reputation with the Dalish will revert, and Virla will suffer.”

Josephine’s brows drew together. “You believe the clan blame you both for Hawen’s disappearance?”

“I do not think they ascribe blame to _her_ , at least not directly. _She_ is not the Great Betrayer.” Aware his tone was growing petulant, he made a conscious attempt to lighten it. “Regardless of my innocence, I need to find him.”

“I understand,” said Josephine. “Were he an Orlesian or Antivan noble, I should seek information of his servants. Is there anyone in the clan who has also been avoiding contact, or appears to have anything to hide?”

His mead was a gleaming amber well, already halfway drained. “Not that we can tell,” said Solas. Ignoring the wound to his pride, he continued: “I asked Scout Harding to take on that task. She has wintered here with them, and has made good friends with Ithiren and Olafin. I… could not be sure the clan would trust me.”

The Antivan sipped at her mead, dark cheeks faintly flushed, buying time to filter her response for tact. “Yet Keeper Hawen was supportive of your marriage to his First.”

“Remarkably so. Indeed, that was my first suspicion: that some member of the clan had taken grave exception to our bonding, sufficient for them to wish to keep Hawen from conducting the ceremony on Summerday. I am, after all, the antagonist in the Dalish peoples’ mythology: the Lord of Tricksters, the Bringer of Nightmares…”

The spirit whispers were an insistent swarm, penetrating even Skyhold’s ancient Veil.

  * _rough tongue dragged up… thought the Dread Wolf would be bigger… beautiful white fur, seven violet eyes half-closed… shimmering pink glaze, impenetrable… **Fen’Harel!**_



The shout was so loud that he started in his chair, scarcely remembering to place the expensive glass on the leather mat on his desk, before he stood, nerves taut, drawing himself up as if for battle.

Then, and only then, came the knock at the door.

“Fen’Harel!”

 _Taniel._ He pulled the door open with his will, ignoring Josephine’s wince, revealing an unlikely triumvirate: Craftsmaster Taniel, with baby Taralen swaddled, sleeping in her arms, tendrils of quicksilver magic diffusing from his tiny body… and Divine Victoria, her expression as bland as only Leliana’s could be at this juncture.

Taniel leant across the desk and thrust the baby at him, terror on her face. He stared down at the sleeping child, dimly aware of Josephine retrieving his empty glass from where Taniel had almost sent it flying. As he had seen this morning, the child had the soul from a spirit of wisdom. A rare blessing, yet one he could not count to his advantage at this moment. The magic that frightened Taniel came from it, sparked by the consternation in the Fade. Adjusting Taralen to rest upon his shoulder, a hand carefully supporting his tiny head, he murmured words in elven into World and Fade. _Tel en’fenim, da’len. I will attend to this._

The spirit reassured, the magic faded. Taniel breathed again. Leliana held out a sending crystal. “Varric,” she said, not wasting words. “They cannot enter Merrill’s house. Did Virla go in there?”

“One moment, Most Holy,” he said. “Craftsmaster, do Taralen’s parents know you brought him here, to me?”

The Dalish woman shook her head. “N-no. Emalien is sleeping. I worried Ithiren would prevent me from seeking your aid. Not all of them clan believe that you turned good. I’ve never seen a babe do magic. Not even Valorin.”

He had to reassure her. “In Elvhenan, it was a common sight. The clan is blessed. If the magic returns when Taralen awakes, consult me further. I will tell the Keeper on his return.”

Passing the baby back to Taniel, Fen’Harel accepted the crystal from Leliana’s hand. “Solas here,” he said.

Varric’s voice was thin through the crystal. “That’s still the name you’re going by?”

“Yes,” said Solas. “It is my name. I am no Rainier, hiding in another’s skin. Fen’Harel is a title. I am talking to the Varric who lied repeatedly to the Seeker about not knowing the Champion’s whereabouts, am I not?”

The sigh was audible. “Sorry, Chuckles. Hawke was meant to meet us here, at noon, in Merrill’s house.”

“The three of them went through the eluvian,” said Solas, voicing his thoughts. “The Champion, the Herald and the Grey Warden mage Caronel. Hawke said the eluvian was in Merrill’s house, in her bedchamber.”

“It was there yesterday evening. Merrill too. Now the house is… well, _warded_. Can’t even knock on the door.”

“Where exactly are you?” asked Leliana, her voice sharp. “Who is with you?”

“Right outside the house. Got Bull and Dorian, and Fenris. Decent party, if we had to fight. Solas, can you…?”

Solas had already reached out to sense beyond the eluvian. Now he was sure that something must be blocking him, and if three mages – four, with Merrill – had not yet subdued it, that _something_ must be powerful. The whispers of the spirits crowding him – _white fur, violet eyes, pink glaze! –_ reassured him not at all. He stopped only to ask them if they knew his rival’s name, and watched their eyes grow wide with fear. _Fenhedis._

“I will look for them immediately,” he said, opening a small pouch at his belt. “Most Holy, Lady Montilyet, would you please arrange a guard upon this room, and keep a careful eye upon the members of my clan?”

Josephine looked puzzled, but understanding sparked in Leliana’s eyes. “You will seek them through the Fade?”

He didn’t need herbs, but it was as well to keep up the pretence. “Yes,” he said simply, lighting the tiny brazier that stood upon his desk. He shook a pinch of herbs into it and closed his eyes. _A wolf,_ he thought. _Be wary._

****

Barely a minute later, he was there – racing on giant paws and cold with sweat. A version of Skyhold, grey under a cloudless sky, the Silver City flushed with pink and red as if the midday sun had turned to sunset. Demons masquerading as wedding guests scattered as he scaled the stairs, flung back by the power of his will. All were under somebody’s control. Some might yet be saved. The Great Hall doors were barred.

The Great Hall doors were barred, but wood. He breathed out fire and turned them into ash.

Hot musk filled his nostrils, skirting reason and flooding him from mouth to cock with need. At the far end, _there_ she was – seven bright, half-hooded eyes in a blizzard of fur, snow in blazing heat, underneath another male, being, being…

There was no reason left to wonder if this was a trap, or the morality of how this differed from the many _other_ times he’d seen her caught in flagrant, delectable lust. He’d was already at the other end, forcing the other male off his mate with weight and claws and magic, jealous of the musk he scented on its tongue and fur. Pride subverted envy to its cause, conscripted rage. She was _his,_ was _his,_ and this runt was… was…

“Audacity?” he snarled, claws to the demon’s dark throat. “I should kill you for this.”

The smaller wolf cowered, its eyes snaking sideways. Virlath was rubbing up against him now, lost to everything but her she-wolf’s heat, masking the object of Audacity’s fear. Rage roared through his veins – at her, for not withstanding this; at him, for not confining her to Skyhold; at Audacity, who once had been his agent; at…

A shimmering pink barrier clanged down, a hemisphere separating the three of them from… from…

“Xebenkeck.” His voice was a threatening growl. “I thought we had an understanding.”

The demon laughed. Her form was silhouetted through the dazzling light: a horned human with three toes on each foot, pendulous purple breasts and white nether wrappings. She had never been one for speaking much, preferring to let her actions do the talking. Obscene, sensual actions, for the most part: rituals done for pleasure, not for purpose, done because they could be done, and not because the sane might wish to.

They were opposites. He sprang against the barrier, but it held firm.

“You trespassed on my domain,” she said, carelessly thrusting her fingers in herself behind the wrappings, up and down, up and… “You used Desire to rid yourself of the Nightmare. Price be paid, Scholar.”

The Champion had exiled her several years ago, in Kirkwall. Yet Xebenkeck was of the Undying, and could not be truly killed, lest she were cast to the four winds like Mythal. His first priority must be to save those trapped here.

He waited for her to name her price.

Xebenkeck insinuated herself against the barrier, flexing her muscles, sucking her fingers thoughtfully. He felt sickened. She gestured at Virlath, still close beside his flank, submissive. “I should like to see up close what makes the Eternal City glow at nights. You know that I will watch you from the Fade. A foretaste, then.”

His response emerged as a silky purr. “And if I do not wish that? You know the Rules. You must offer a choice.”

“Your creature’s life,” said Xebenkeck, her glistening fingers pointing to Audacity.

Fen’Harel scoffed, laughter like claws scratching on stone tiles. “You think it is mine? After what it did here?”

Beside him, Virlath turned her face to him, away from Xebenkeck. Her violet eyes were open, bright with tears, not heat. _A feint, then?_ She whispered, in the language of wolves: “No, no, Solas, don’t give it to her. It saved me! I promised it that I would intercede.”

“It… violated you,” he said, his tone as sharp as the teeth he bared. “You think I would allow that?”

As she shook her head, pleading with her eyes, he pretended to scorn her admission: “I do not believe you.”

Xebenkeck looked disgusted. “You do realise I can understand you still? Let me make this clearer for you all. If I take Audacity, then I will make it hunt the leaders of your mortal kin as playthings. It has… form in this area. Not all those here are demons, Fen’Harel.”

With a flick of her wrist, the barrier became translucent. True horror seized him when he saw what hung above.

Suspended from the ceiling were dozens of slave cages, each encased within a magic barrier. And in each cage, an elf. Most he did not recognise, but some… There was Keeper Deshanna, Keeper Ilan’ta… Keeper Hawen.

Virlath howled in shame. “They cannot know for certain who you are,” he reminded her, sick to his stomach.

“Why can we not break the barrier?” she asked, her voice a plaintive whine. He reminded himself that the form made her submissive, that her display of weakness was as much a part of Xebenkeck’s control as the barrier.

Yet he could not, would not fuck her with the Keepers watching, even in the Fade. Even as a wolf.

_Especially not as a wolf._

Xebenkeck fondled her breasts at him, clawed mauve hands palming them together. Superfluous, Void knew. She tilted only her head to Virlath. “Because you used my powers to break the Blight. _He_ knows the Rules.”

She had spoken in Common, the wolven language impossible to replicate in the mouth of a demon. Fen’Harel’s response was also audible to all the Keepers in their cages high above. “It was right to cure the Blight and heal the World of its madness. I am not ashamed of that, nor of the subterfuges required to obtain that goal.”

His voice rang proudly round the Hall, as if he spoke not to four dozen captive elves but to the ranks he had commanded, aeons ago in Elvhenan. Behind him, Audacity bared wolf teeth, as if waiting his command.

Everything clicked into place. Too proud to wish to be a plaything of Undying Desire, it was still his agent.

“You said Audacity was _my_ creature.” 

Lightning prickled up his spine, as the demon took true form and flung its magic at the barrier. Whatever power it had sucked from Virlath had been granted out of something other than desire, for the barrier began to tear apart. _The demons are nothing. They’re a tool,_ he’d once sneered at the Seeker, infuriated with the Wardens.

As soon as he could feel the air flow from the other side, scent Xebenkeck’s blood, he transformed into a falcon and soared out, far away from Virlath. It would take the Undying too much time to cast a barrier around them both. Landing gracefully on the far balcony parapet, he shifted to an elf. Blood pounded in his veins, his mind.

“Shield yourselves! Stay back from the sides!” he yelled, and began to pull each set of iron bars apart. Audacity shattered the barriers with lightning blasts. Forsaking whatever anonymity she had left, Virla changed to elven form and ran at the demon, slashing with her sun-bright spirit sword. Some Keepers, quicker to respond, turned their fire on Xebenkeck. Others followed. Remarkably, no-one was sufficient of a fool to turn their fire on him.

It almost made him feel proud to be Dalish.

Cloaking himself in darkness, he began to cast the long spell that would exile the Forbidden to the Void.

  



	30. Stratagem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not at all suitable for work.

Xebenkeck lay prone, Virla’s sword to her throat. A single word from him would finish the spell.

That word died on his lips. Any spirits not compelled to do Xebenkeck’s will had fled long since. The energies of those who’d been constrained to fight – remnants of a division she must have filched from Nightmare’s army – were strewn across the Great Hall floor, glowing rainbow pools of essence. He’d admitted the demons in waves to keep the Keepers busy, assisting them to see themselves as victors of the field and not Xebenkeck’s dupes.

Control of the battlefield was paramount. Solas took a steadying breath, thinking through his makeshift plan of action. This was no place for grief, or lost illusions. Perceptions now would shape his future existence.

He’d taken a moment to speak with Hawen during the battle, ascertaining that he and Deshanna had been conversing with other Keepers at a sacred location, before they had been ambushed by Xebenkeck’s minions. The man was extremely reluctant to divulge any more, his unease palpable, and Fen’Harel contented himself with checking that Virla’s presumed father would have allies near at hand in case of a fight when he awoke.

Unseen, he allowed the gleaming barrier across the balcony and Great Hall doors to dissipate, and caught Audacity’s eye. One of only two of them, not seven – the demon had taken the form of an Antivan elf, with Crow tattoos on a tanned face and braided, yellow hair. The man looked familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to him.

The message of the tattoos was clear enough: _I know that if I fail my task, you’ll kill me._

Yet none of them could know. Becoming Fen’Harel, he Fade-stepped down to Virlath’s side. His timing was perfect: multicoloured light slanted through the rose window and reflected off his armour, drawing all attention. Virla was every inch the elven queen in her rich red velvet gown, with a posture and poise any _dirth’ena enasalin_ might have envied. Imagining the Keepers as the elvhen of Halamshiral was possible, if one were not too close.

“This assault on my People offends me,” he said, eyeing Xebenkeck with distaste. “You are one word from exile.”

“Your victory will be short-lived, Fen’Harel,” hissed Xebenkeck. “The Rules are all that keep us from the Void.”

“I do not propose to break the terms of our agreement,” he said, forcing his outward calmness in.

Beside him, Virla stiffened, her sword-point trembling. Her head jerked up, staring at nothing. Saying… nothing.

Xebenkeck’s lips curved into a smile, no less dangerous for her weakened powers. “Make your choice.”

Audacity was already halfway to the doors, inching round the shadowed outskirts of the room. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he froze the demon in a block of ice. “I have,” he said to Xebenkeck, and to the room at large.

As he had hoped, Virla was the first to plead for mercy. “He fought alongside us! I thought you would save him!”

His face was determinedly grim, his tone neutral. “When did I say that I would save him?”

“Your lover will always be jealous of your favours,” said Xebenkeck, with a faint laugh that turned into a racking cough, her wounds seeping energy and blood. “The d… demon’s fate was sealed already.”

Solas chose to ignore her, and addressed his next words to the Keepers. “Audacity corrupted the Dalish Keeper Marethari Talas Sabrae, resulting in her death. For that alone, it would deserve to be killed.”

“It was not destroyed when she was?” asked Virla, managing to keep her voice level.

At any other time he would have applauded her excellent question, but the truth could not be given now.

“Not entirely,” he said. At the same instant he flung a meteor of fire at the ice that held the demon, and the next moment spoke a word of power. Xebenkeck’s eyes went black, and her body fell limp. All that could be perceived of Audacity was a glowing ball of lightning essence.

The Dread Wolf spoke solemnly into the silence. “Thus shall we preserve the world from chaos.”

For a few seconds, he stared down at Xebenkeck’s corpse, to underline the magnitude of their achievement.

Then he raised his eyes to the audience, Virla quiet and still beside him. Some of the Keepers, including his own, had flown from their cages; others had stayed aloft, choosing to rain destruction from above.

“When you awake,” he said to the assembled leaders of the clans, “remember that Fen’Harel was on _your_ side.”

Emerald mist filled the room, his power given visual form, and when it dissipated, the Keepers were no longer present. The abhorrent cages were gone, likewise the demon essence – all except Audacity and Xebenkeck.

Virla withdrew her sword, allowing the magic to fade. She looked around the room. “You woke them up?”

“I suspected they might have had questions,” he responded, affecting to look sheepish. “Are you all right?”

She had half-turned away, a flush creeping up her neck. Her words were soft, embarrassed but determined. “The demon… licked my leg. In its wolf form. It lay on top of me. All it did was pretend. It did not hurt me.”

Solas walked to stand beside her, wondering whether or not he should attempt to draw her into his arms.

“I believe you,” he said, spreading his hands, palm up. “I believed you before. Your scent on Audacity’s tongue was faint, and fainter still… elsewhere. Had it not been so, that alone would have been reason to kill him.”

She made an uncertain noise, halfway between a laugh and a moan. “We are not bonded yet, _vhenan_.”

“And yet I do not care to share you. What would you do if you found me in intimate embrace with a demon and did not believe I had consented to such actions?” Virla nodded slowly, apparently admitting his point, and he continued, more gently: “If spirits are people, then sometimes it is appropriate to punish them accordingly.”

“Would you punish a desire demon for such behaviour?” Her attention was focused on Xebenkeck, her tone curiously flat… or both curious and flat, as if she both did and didn’t want to know the answer to the question.

This was not a direction he wanted to pursue. “We are short of time. I wished to give the Keepers the impression that both Audacity and Xebenkeck were dead. Instead, they are merely stunned – their bodies given the semblance of death. When they awake, the choice must still be made. You can save my agent should you wish.”

His words jolted Virla out of her daze. She met his gaze for the first time since he had blamed Audacity for Marethari’s death, her face pale, her eyes pools of violet, shimmering like lightning essence. “Is this another test? Xebenkeck wanted to observe us… to watch you lay with me, to satisfy her desires. What would **you** do?”

The sunlight gleaming off his armour was too bright; he stepped away. “I would rather hear what you would do.”

Virla frowned. “We ought only to kill those who attack us…” she began. Distress flickered in her eyes, but he was powerless to reassure her. “…who instigate violence against our persons… or, in extremis, our agenda.”

The sunlight played on the golden embroidery at the hem of her robe, like shards of light cast through the Veil, or dying embers from the Conclave. That **ought** was troublesome. _Small differences lead to fatal consequences._

“Is Audacity on our side?” she asked, a tremor in her voice. “You said it corrupted Keeper Marethari.”

He sighed. “Would it change your opinion if I said that the Audacity you met today is a young, re-formed spirit of pride, no more than three years old, grown where the old Audacity fell?”

“So… it is not a murderer?”

“No more than you or I. It has killed its share of demons in the Fade. I gave it direction, turned it from violence.”

“And Xebenkeck would twist Audacity from its purpose, force it to be a mindless slave of desire?”

“That is correct,” said Solas. His hands were sweating. But this was right: he ought not to make this choice for her.

She smoothed her hands down her dress, fiddling with the seams to pull it straight. “Why is it _my_ choice?”

He gathered the courage to put a hand on her shoulder, and waited until she met his gaze. “Because I will not make that choice without your consent. I trust your wisdom, Virlath. Whichever choice you make, I am content.”

“If what you say is true…” she began. He nodded, and she gulped, as if at some earlier memory, and continued, her face tinged pink: “Then I… consent. When we lay together, in the future, spirits – and demons – will often be watching.”

Relief overwhelmed him, and a rush of love for her clear-sightedness. “ _Ar lath_ , _’ma_ _vhenan,_ ” was all he could say.

****

“I always thought you overrated mercy, until now,” was Xebenkeck’s gloating comment, as she sashayed towards the window sill. She had forsaken her true form for the form of a beautiful white-haired elven woman, stark naked save for a silver rope wound three times around her waist, its tassles hanging loose in front of her.

They were in a memory of Skyhold’s war room, Audacity banished to the outer corridor, and Virla fully dressed and furiously blushing, staring at the floor. Fen’Harel gritted his teeth. This… was going to be difficult.

Xebenkeck disported herself with one foot on the broad stone still, the other dangling loose. Coquettishly, she draped her hair over her chest to hide her breasts and edhas, shifting the tassles to one side. Her scent was as seductive as the wolf’s musk had been earlier, as obscene as painting Andraste naked in the Chantry.

For all his love for Virlath, it was an effort not to invite her to join in. That Undying Desire was interested in him… was watching every move he made, would feel him come undone… would replay it over, and over again…

Solas tore his thoughts away, and moved to stand behind his Dalish girl, turning her so she faced away from Xebenkeck. “Pretend she isn’t here,” he whispered into her ear, his hands gently curving round her hips.

“It’s hard,” she murmured, but nodded, and leant back against him, breathing slowly and deeply. His fingers began to pulse soothing magic, reaching through her dress between her thighs, and curling up her chest.

“There is no need for you to disrobe,” said Solas, trying to remember all the seductions he’d never carried out. More loudly, he added: “Lean forward, with your hands on the table.”

He bent down to gather the bottom of Virla’s robe in his hands, drawing it up to expose first her ankles, then her calves, her knees, leaving damp handmarks on the fabric. At her thighs, he paused for thought. If he secured it with magic at this level, he could manage this with a semblance of discretion – his trousers modestly unlaced…

“You should use your tongue on her first,” said Xebenkeck. He turned to glare, incensed by the interruption. The demon rolled her eyes: “She’s dry as bone dust. I don’t want to hear her scream in pain, even if you do.”

“And you think your prattling will help?” he countered, then, as she laughed, let Virla’s robe fall to the floor. Waves of anger poured from him, the kind of reckless fury that always made him break the rules. He found himself storming across the floor to Xebenkeck, and as he neared her, shaking with the effort of resisting her sensuous aroma, the dripping well between her legs, her pert pale naked breasts…

“Solas.”

Virla’s voice had been a sharp command. He wheeled around, and was faced with… Mythal. Mythal! Not what she had been reduced to, trapped in Flemeth’s human body, but the pre-Arlathan goddess of love, exactly as she might have manifested nine thousand years ago to a brave petitioner, dressed in purest white, her breasts half-bared, with silk strings taut across her naked abdomen, and flowers bound within her hair.

Even the voice was right. He fell to his knees and hid his face in shame. Mythal lifted up her dress to drown him in folds of cloth. Lace brushed his nose. When he opened his eyes, downy hair shimmered underneath the lace.

“I was told you had a silver tongue, Fen’Harel,” said Mythal’s voice. “I hope it is not too afraid to speak.”

His world was white and flesh, the room obscured by silk and thighs. Desperate for forgiveness, he tore at the tiny lacy undergarment, dragging it down to her knees. As he reached out to press his tongue against the soft pink nub, to quench his thirst within her sacred channel, she stepped back carefully, letting him follow on his knees underneath her voluminous dress. Somehow, she’d relieved him of his armour, leaving him only the loincloth of a penitent. The rough fabric chafed against his groin and throbbing cock. It was no more than he deserved.

Eventually, she backed against the table, lifting herself up on to it and spreading her thighs wide enough to hook her ankles round behind his back. The dress unfurled down to the ground as she moved, preventing any chink of light or hint of scent from permeating his consciousness. All that was, was her – and he was no longer afraid.

Solas pressed the flat of his tongue to her slit. He was tasting the very waters of Creation, thrumming with honeyed magic. His hands dug into her hip bones, holding her firm as she bucked with pleasure… and he’d hardly even started. He couldn’t even see her face. A flick of his tongue meant a moan of delight, so he repeated it. Heat crept into his cheeks, a radiating heat from her – he sucked the fire gratefully, and gasped as it turned to shards of ice within his mouth. Lightning and rock, flame and frost, the firmness of her legs around his shoulders, the taut golden muscles, the bright faint auburn hair that tickled at his nose… undeserved munificence that only love might grant to pride. _Everything I did, I did for you,_ he thought, and felt her thrill in sympathy. Time passed: a thousand licks and kisses; a thousand soft shudders and breathy gasps.

Suddenly she was naked, lying on the table, and he jerked back. It was Virla’s smile he saw, softened with the kind of love he thought he’d never know. He rocked back on his heels, freed as she uncrossed her ankles.

“I want to fuck you,” she said, still speaking in elven. “Close your eyes and lie down.”

Her tone had been respectful and polite. He did as he had been commanded, and felt her hands untying the abrasive cloth, soothing the raw red patches with a slight touch of her fingers. Her knees pressed into his ribs. Impossible to imagine anything else but the slightness of her body leaning over his, to feel anything but the magic penetrating deep below his skin. Loved as he had never been before; saved from his own folly.

“May I, please, _‘ma fen_?” she asked, and he gasped – _Yes! –_ and _yes_ and _yes_ again as she sank on to him.

Her movements were tortuously slow, as if she were a spell in Elvhenan, weaving him by centuries, or spring that brought the blossoms into bloom, twenty precious flowers every morn. Dazzling sunlight. Every branch of every tree in the forest was his cock. Trees a new ring every year. Unfurling her petals.

“You are part of the forest, wolf,” he imagined her whispering, tracing a line of ivy down his chest. Leaning over him, she brought her lips to his, soft and full of heaven’s fruits.

He could bear the darkness no longer. “Take me as a wolf,” he cried, his eyes flying open.

Virla’s face was flushed, closer to rapture than he had imagined. He groaned as she released him, watching her breasts sway as she slid back down his thighs. She made no attempt to change form, but stood up instead, her eyes still fixed on something near the window – a challenge fierce within them. Loose red hair streamed down.

She turned around and leant with her hands on the table. “Shift form if you must, _‘ma fen_. I am content.”

Mesmerised by the view she’d so brazenly displayed, he growled, and sprang at her, concentrating his huge lupine form into a size that would…

His muscles compressed and stretched, easing his wolf’s cock – swollen, longer, larger – into her.

“Ahhhh…” she breathed, as he laid his body on hers, dark fur on pale skin. The noise sounded good.

He drew back and drove himself in again and again, forepaws on the table, licking from her shoulderblade up to her neck, her body shuddering with desire and force and magic. Contrast faded from the world, bodies a uniform grey: smooth and supple; furred and muscular. Soon he knew nothing but the fucking, his body moving in a lustful animal rhythm with hers: sweat-slicked, maddened, bewildered. Led beyond the edge of desperation.

A long high scream of ecstasy, a mournful howl of loss – and they were done.

Solas collapsed back into elven form: naked; trembling with something close to panic.

Hands firmly on his cheeks: Virla, dressed once more in demure grey velvet gown, eyes ablaze with something more than lust. “I will take it from here, _vhenan,_ ” she said, as he struggled to focus. Mythal… her thighs… his cock… a wolf?! Before he could place the strange alluring scent behind his head, she spoke again: “ **Wake up.** ”

He was in a chair with Josephine staring at him, her lips parted in a horror he now shared.

_What had he done?_

_What had he done?_

  



	31. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kirkwall's practically a character in itself. The City of Chains... the Twins... the place, one assumes, the Tevinter magisters first breached the Veil... and, of course, the home of the Champion.

No sooner had Solas faded from her view than the war room doors clanged open.

“Why did you wake up Fen’Harel?” cried Audacity. The spirit still affected Zevran’s Antivan drawl, plucked from the shallows of her memory. “We needed him to complete the spell and exile her to the Void!”

Virla had not taken her eyes off Xebenkeck, and now levelled a cold stare at its semi-naked form as it changed to that taken before, when she had conjured up the semblance of Mythal: a handsome elven man, with long dark braided hair. It had flaunted itself throughout her seduction of Solas, daring her to beckon it to join them.

Unwilling to accept defeat, it stalked towards her like a rapacious werewolf, its moss-green cloak falling open in a deliberate display of muscled virility. “An exquisite display, _vhenan,_ ” it said in elven, and added a number of explicit suggestions regarding what she ought to do as a main course following the wolf hors d’oeuvres. She shook her head composedly to each of them, the flush on her cheeks fading as her robes reddened.

“I owe you nothing,” she said, when Xebenkeck eventually fell silent, affirming it had neither hold nor power over her. “We have no arrangement. Instead I have some questions for you both.”

“Can you trust us to answer truthfully?” asked Audacity, with a short bark of laughter. It settled itself on the war table beside her, swinging its legs. At least it was fully robed: the difference between pride and desire, perhaps.

Her heart was beating fast as moth’s wings, her body stiff and sore… but her focus was _indomitable,_ stronger for past trials. By the grace of what Mythal once was, and would restore, her mind was clear. Every being she’d seen here was a spirit – or demon, to the Chantry – except Solas, herself and the Keepers.

“Audacity,” she began. “Are you light enough to pass through the Veil to the world beyond?”

“In Kirkwall, yes,” it responded. “The Veil here is thin.”

“Good,” said Virla, with a thin smile. “I should like you to assist me when I return to my waking body. I believe a demon there assisted me into sleep. Presumably, it still remains. Will you do that?”

“With pleasure,” said Audacity, with a smirk at Xebenkeck. “I can even tell you its name should you wish.”

Xebenkeck reached out to slap the other spirit, but its hand met Virlath’s barrier. Sparks flew, and a pained look appeared in the cool blue eyes. Belatedly it reassembled other clothes around it: gilded armour, furred mantle.

“Its name is Bedazzle,” it said, gripping its hands behind its back and frowning. “Pray give it my regards.”

“Or you could summon it here, or instruct it not to harm me,” said Virla acerbically, continuing to resist its glamour and its choice of form: “…since I assume it is under your command.”

“Unfortunately, I can do neither,” said Xebenkeck. It flowed back into the beautiful female elf again, no longer looking like a younger, sexier version of Solas, but now almost modest in a low-cut silver gown. It sighed. “When one is too powerful to traverse the Veil directly, one must rely on lesser beings in order to communicate.”

“Very well,” said Virla, resolving to ask Solas more about the history of the Forbidden when they next met. “Do you consider, Xebenkeck, that the terms of your agreement with the Dread Wolf are satisfied?”

“Yes.” The woman nodded. She seemed wretched, despondent. “Though **I** could be more so. Such a desirable man. He has resisted my lures for tens of thousands of years. I hope you do not blame me for one last attempt?”

 _The Dread Wolf is a virgin who likes tarts._ Justice and mercy warred within her heart, and cunning won out. “It had better **be** the last attempt, or you will never see the inside of the Eternal City again.”

Xebenkeck’s blue eyes widened like the Vir’Abelasan. “You would… countermand my exile?”

“I might,” said Virla, casting out her lure. “It would require a gesture of good faith. One hundred years of impeccable behaviour, putting your considerable talents to honest purpose for the good of others.”

“You can’t bargain with her!” cried Audacity, adding, in a frantic whisper: “Fen’Harel would never permit it.”

Virla shook her head, scattering petals of Andraste’s grace. “I am not bargaining. I am offering purpose.”

“I… will need to think about this,” said Xebenkeck, musing. “A gesture of good faith, you said?”

“A hundred years cannot seem long, to one as old as you,” said Virla, wondering if she’d hooked the fish or not.

The woman’s mouth twitched into a smile. Virla had rarely seen anything more bewitching, and reminded herself that this was for her benefit too. “I prefer the word… experienced. Actions matter, not time alone.”

She had said something similar to Solas, in their room in the Silver City, and inclined her head to Xebenkeck, careful to show no fear nor lack of resolve. “The _choice_ of actions matters most.”

On that parting shot – or barbed remark, to continue the angler’s analogy – Virla turned to Audacity. “Let’s go.”

****

With Audacity’s help, she despatched the demon Bedazzle who had taken Merrill’s form, and the many shades it conjured, though not before one of them had managed to crack the eluvian with a misplaced slam.

That was certainly going to be a problem, but the first task was to find out what had happened here. A glance into the main chamber and up to the high rectangular windows – or openings, since they held no glass – showed that it was night time. Twelve hours, perhaps, she’d spent in the Fade? That odd burning smell she’d noticed before still lingered. _Spirits are terrible at baking,_ Solas had said. She hoped it was only that.

A sudden moan from a room nearby had her sprinting the short distance – and just as rapidly untying the bound and gagged forms of Hawke, Caronel and Merrill from where they had been stowed. _Why not kill them?_

“Desire demons are reluctant to kill any potential prey,” said Audacity, as Virla checked them over for injuries.

Hawke stared at it. “Your face seems familiar,” he said. “Wait… weren’t you the assassin fleeing the Crows?”

“And you are the mighty Champion of Kirkwall,” said Audacity, ad libbing as well as the actual Zevran Arainai.

“The cave where we found the sylvanwood ring. You were there,” said Hawke to Merrill. “And Aveline. Varric.”

“The varterral’s cave,” said Merrill, her voice a distant song. “Bound there as long as it had something to guard. Duty forcing it to stay alive. We killed it twice. I am sorry, Virla. It must have taken me unawares.”

“The varterral?” asked Caronel, blinking away confusion, and wincing as she untied his ankles.

“No, the demon,” said Merrill. She pointed at Audacity. “He said there was a demon here.”

“We killed it, and the shades it conjured,” said Virla. She returned to the bedchamber. All that remained were silver coins, a moth-eaten scarf and a golden locket: the demons’ energies had already evaporated through the Veil, dissipating – she assumed – into the Void. Strange how different the world looked from each side.

Hawke came after her, rubbing at his wrists in bemusement. “Were you also captured… and Zevran, isn’t it?”

From around the corner, Virla could hear shouts and knocks at the door. It sounded like Bull’s voice. Deciding to postpone her answer to Hawke’s question, she hastened round to unbar it, and was almost squashed flat as she opened the door, and then enfolded in a broiling hug by the massive not-Qunari warrior, her head pressed against his harness. He smelled just as she remembered him: fish and sweat and weapon polish.

“Hello, Boss,” said Bull, looking around over her head. “Need any more help in here now the wards are gone?”

“Clear of demons,” said Hawke, reappearing with his arm around a sobbing Merrill. Caronel limped into view.

“She’s here,” cried Dorian over his shoulder to Varric, as Virla urged them in, away from prying Alienage eyes. Fenris followed some steps behind Dorian, tension crackling off them like a cage of static.

Last was Varric, who went immediately to Merrill’s side. “What’s the matter, Daisy?”

“The eluvian,” she managed, through her tears. “B… broken! After I spent so much time repairing it, and… oh…”

She’d lost her clan and Keeper over this. Hawke tightened his arm around her. “Perhaps it can be fixed again.”

“Weren’t we going to use it to get to Skyhold?” asked Dorian, pushing past them to inspect the damage.

“You wanted to study these,” said Virla to Dorian, having gone to stand beside him. “Make any progress?”

“Oh yes,” he said, the familiar sarcasm in his tone. “In between preparations for a war with the Qunari, setting my father’s estates to rights, leading the Lucerni, and ensuring my friends in the South didn’t completely forget to keep me apprised of all their plans, I had ample opportunity to write a prizewinning treatise on eluvians.”

“Maybe Solas can fix it,” she said, sighing at the cracked mirror. Then she smiled. “I missed you, Dorian.”

The magister shifted awkwardly. “So… is it true? That you and… he… are to be married in two days’ time?”

“If it’s the twenty-ninth of Cloudreach now, then yes. I didn’t know how long I’d slept for.”

Varric had been listening too. “Second bell’s just gone. I said we should take shifts to sleep, but no-one wanted to leave first. Strange, that. Anyway, unless anyone can fix that mirror… no? If not, then Daisy doesn’t have enough chairs for all of us, and I’m not sure…” he sniffed: “…I’d trust the food here. Come to the Keep?”

It seemed the best solution for the moment.

****

Varric, Hawke and Fenris had led them expertly through Kirkwall’s maze: past the Hanged Man, through the bazaar; dwarfed by high stone walls and moonlit Vimmark peaks beyond. Crimson dragon glyphs glimmered, daubed on houses; golden ravens flew on indigo banners. The Veil was perilously fragile here, as prone to tear as gossamer, and their party had to slaughter a few minor demons who had pushed their way too quickly into life. _Children,_ she thought. _Just children, jumping through the Veil because it’s there. No wonder Solas hated this world._

Virla wondered where he was. Had he felt the eluvian shatter, or was he blissfully unaware?

Bandits watched them warily from the shadows, oddly reluctant to attack their notoriously wealthy Viscount. Varric must have done something to improve their lot, she thought – all his stories involved a lot of fighting in the streets of Kirkwall at night. Somewhat to her relief, before they’d entered Hightown, Audacity had made his excuses and left, muttering something about the need to take care of business involving the Crows.

They made it to the Keep around the time the third bell struck, and Varric settled them in chairs around a fire in his outer office. Books lay scattered around the room: the elegant shelves half-empty, the floor half-covered.

“Now I see why you never invite us here,” said Dorian, tutting as he retrieved a battered copy of _Patterns within Form_ from the floor. He flicked through it, dislodging a folded parchment. “A bill for gloves. Have you paid it?”

Varric snorted. “Check the date. Right. Drinks and food are ordered. Anything we need to know, Skylady?”

Magister Pavus inspected the chit, then smirked and passed it to Virla: it dated to the Blessed Age. She exchanged a smile with him before starting her report of the night’s events, leaving out most of what had happened in the Fade. All they needed to know was that she’d escaped the demons with Solas’ help; that Hawen and some others had been held as well; that they’d all woken up; and that she’d rescued the others.

“I assume Hawen and Deshanna will return to Skyhold,” she finished. “I’m sure Solas will find a way to get us there. There must be another eluvian somewhere in the Planasene, even if there isn’t one in Kirkwall.”

“Chuckles will have told Nightingale and Ruffles you’re alright. If they’ve got another plan, they’ll crystal us,” deduced Varric, swigging back a draught of dull black liquor. Virla sipped her ale. “If not, I’ll make contact in the morning, seventh bell or thereabouts. Nightingale stays up late, don’t want to disturb Most Holy’s beauty sleep.”

Bull had already fallen asleep in his chair, muscled forearms hanging loose over the padded wooden ones. At this he snored, making Merrill laugh nervously. Dorian gave him a fond look. Fenris sighed at them both.

“There’s a spare guardroom downstairs, all made up with bunks,” said Varric to the room at large. “Anyone wants a kip here, make yourselves at home. Doubt we’re heading out of Kirkwall until mid-morning at least.”

“Wake up, you somnolent brute,” said Dorian, a tanned hand cupping his lover’s face, as Fenris nodded, exhausted, and made for the door. Caronel followed, still limping, then Dorian, leading Bull. “Soft bed awaits.”

“You not tired, Daisy?” asked Varric. “Could do a guest room for you, if you’re not up to sleeping with the boys.”

“That might be best,” she said, yawning. Her hand crept underneath the scarf around her throat, and a stricken expression crossed her face, as if something were amiss. “Oh, no…” she whispered, her eyes wide with horror.

Virla remembered the locket Bedazzle had worn, left behind on the floor of Merrill’s room. Placing her ale on a nearby table, she fished it out of the pouch at her belt. “The demon dropped this, Merrill – is it yours?”  

The other woman made a start of surprise, relief plain in her eyes, and almost snatched the trinket from her outstretched hand. “Dread Wolf take me, I knew something else was wrong! _Ma serannas, lethallin._ ”

Merrill’s fingers, shaking, fiddled with the catch, and opened up the locket to display the most beautiful example of sylvanwood crafting Virla had seen in her life, with magic subtly bound into the carving. More magic than there should be in a Keeper’s ring, thought Virla, thinking of Deshanna twirling hers… and Hawen’s… Lanaya’s…

“It tells the story of the Dread Wolf’s Betrayal,” said Merrill, oblivious to Varric’s wince. “Here are the Creators, locked in the heavens… and here are the Forgotten Ones, imprisoned in the abyss. There’s Fen’Harel.”

The images were tiny, but she could see the wolf. Her heart raced suddenly, remembering his pleading voice – _take me as a wolf! –_ and the hot drag of his long, swollen edhis in and out of her. She nodded, throat gone dry.

“Why did you wear it in a locket, Merrill?” asked Hawke, his voice gentle. “Was it too large for your fingers?”

“No,” said Merrill sadly. “It’s a Keeper’s ring. After Keeper Marethari’s death, I would have been Keeper, but the clan would have killed me if I returned. Since I wasn’t Keeper, I told myself I couldn’t wear it on my finger, but I also couldn’t leave it lying around. I wore it under my scarf for years. I wonder why the demon took it?”

“It feels important,” said Virla, forcing herself to focus on the present, and not on the distance separating her from Solas. “How would you feel about coming to Skyhold with us? I will ensure nobody harms you.”

“Is it a city, like Kirkwall?” asked Merrill, curiously. She turned to Varric. “I’d better find that twine you gave me.”

Varric rolled his eyes, and guided her out to a guest room, making a sign behind his back for Hawke to talk to Virla. Before the Champion could speak, Virla forestalled him: “She doesn’t know about Solas, does she?”

He shook his head, grimacing. “None of us really knew how best to break it to her. Does she need to know?”

“It’s not going to be a secret,” warned Virla, gripping the chair arms tightly. “If she comes, she’ll need to know.”

****

Eight hours later, Merrill was still sleeping, and Fenris had gone to help Caronel with his griffon. Virla was still pondering the value of knowledge, while holed up deep in the Viscount’s Keep archives with Dorian, Varric, Hawke, and Bull. Their goal: anything to indicate likely locations for an eluvian in Kirkwall. Varric had explained his suspicions that Fen’Harel’s agents had been using one to infiltrate the city. If so, they’d been clever.

Varric had crystalled Leliana and Josephine earlier that morning, to tell them who he’d got with him in Kirkwall. Both sides seemed surprised that Solas wasn’t with them. The Divine explained that, while Solas hadn’t directly told them of his plans, Zephyr was absent from Skyhold, so they’d assumed he’d gone through the Crossroads already to find them. Josephine in particular was distraught: _I’m terribly sorry, Inquisitor. I should have asked!_

Now, as she stood by Varric, clutching his crystal again, Virla remembered to warn Leliana that Keeper Hawen should be returning, and that there was a possibility Deshanna might not be the only Keeper coming. _Prepare for a fight,_ was her reluctant admission. _They could now know of Fen’Harel. I can’t assume they’ll all approve._

“Most – probably all – of them can shapeshift,” she explained to Leliana. “Look for a flock of birds.”

“Or a pack of wolves?” asked Leliana, in her most deceptively sweet Orlesian accent.

“A herd of halla,” put in Varric. The crystal absorbed noises from all round the room, so the two of them had retreated to a tiny windowless carrel in a corner of the archives. “Virla, could Solas be stuck in the Crossroads?”

She thought about it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Even without Zephyr, if he fell off a bridge, he can shift and fly. I think if he found Merrill’s mirror and couldn’t use it, he’d either go back to Skyhold or try another one.”

Varric nodded, fingering the chain at his neck. “What if Zephyr attacked him? She was… temperamental.”

“I don’t think his griffon would do that. Solas was able to command her without trouble,” said Leliana firmly.

Virla felt relieved at the confirmation. Important to remember just how powerful a mage Solas was, and how unlikely it was that even a legendary beast like Zephyr could get the upper hand – or razor-sharp claw – on him.

“Has anyone seen him since he woke?” asked Virla, trying to stay resolute. This must be a misunderstanding.

“I did,” said Josephine, a tremor in her voice. “After dinner I’d gone down to wait near Solas’ study, in case he needed something. I’d fallen asleep in my chair, when I heard strange noises from the room. I went in, leaving the guard outside. Suddenly, he woke. He looked… horrified at first. I must have looked scared, for he hastened to reassure me he’d found you, and that you’d be home soon. Then he left. I thought he’d gone to bed!”

“You thought he’d gone to bed, despite him having just woken up?” Varric’s voice was amused. Virla’s blood ran cold; had she made some terrible mistake? “Shit, Ruffles, even I could manage better logic than that.”

“I’d just woken up myself!” objected the Antivan, before a cough from Leliana made her fall silent.

“Cole is going with Valya on Revas to see if they can track where Zephyr went,” said Divine Victoria.

Virla thanked her for the information, and promised to repeat the call in a few hours’ time. Her decision to wake Solas up seemed more foolish every time she thought of it.

****

In the afternoon, the others dispersed – to Hawke’s estate to search his library, or Merrill’s house to inspect the broken eluvian. Virla remained in the archives: trying to focus on her task. Varric had left the crystal with her. He’d wanted to stay himself but Merrill had looked so upset at what awaited her that he’d felt obliged to go.

Virla was scanning Merchant Guild reports when Caronel approached her. “Dorfassan’s ready to fly,” he began, with a neat bow. “If you want to return to Skyhold, Inquisitor Lavellan, I would be honoured to fly you across the Waking Sea. Even if we left tomorrow morning, you would be there in time for Summerday. The weather’s fine.”

She thanked him, and sighed as the door closed gently behind him. What would her life have been like if Solas had never joined the Inquisition, had never developed this visceral fear of abandonment that terrified her? Would she have accepted the hand of a handsome elven mage like Caronel? Valya was to be envied, if her reading of those signs was true. Yet… if Solas had not been there, they would most likely all be dead by now, in some brutal future like she’d seen in Redcliffe… or waiting, all unknowing, for the destruction of the world.

That must be why she feared his disappearance – terror of betrayal. Virla glared at the reports, trying to suppress both fear and fury, and so did not see Audacity manifesting in front of her until he leant over the desk. The scream stuck in her throat turned into a growl: “Don’t **ever** do that to me again, or I swear you’ll regret it.”

The spirit forced an expression of contrition on to Zevran’s face, where it sat uncomfortably. “Something’s going on at Serah Hawke’s estate. Feels like one of Xebenkeck’s things. I thought that you might like to know.”

Mere minutes passed before they were at Hawke’s front door, speaking to his housekeeper Orana, overawed to find herself greeting the Inquisitor again. Orana explained Hawke had a guest already, Lady Josephine Montilyet. Virla politely overrode all objections to her waiting in the hall, and asked Orana to take a message to the Keep for Varric. Once the servant had gone, Virla pushed open doors until she found them in Hawke’s bedchamber.

She swore quietly, and closed the door as silently as she’d opened it, trembling as she thought what best to do. The physical resemblance was astounding, but surely the real Josephine would never have let Hawke do _that_.

Feeling out into the Veil, Virla winced as she recognised the tell-tale signature: Xebenkeck herself. _Oh, shit._

  



	32. Insomnia

His arms clinging tightly round Zephyr’s neck, his head half-buried in her warm leonine fur, feeling the steady thrum of her wingbeats, Solas tried to put his terror in context. Had he been completely cut off from the Fade, he could not have felt this panic. Had he been made Tranquil once again – a monstrous prospect – he would have remained in Skyhold, rigorously plotting out his goals, not fleeing for Aratishan in desperation.

But the wakening spell she’d cast had certainly done _something,_ barring him from all but the most mundane access to the Fade. He felt as weak as when he’d woken up five years ago, with only enough mana to cast a simple barrier or a blast of frost. He couldn’t reach across the land to open an eluvian, shift form, walk the Fade…

Five years ago, a similar hysteria had caused a dread misjudgement: allowing the Venatori to locate his orb, leading to all the terrible events that followed. Solas sat up straight, forcing himself to think calmly. The past might not repeat itself, if he could use its lessons better. Virlath would never hurt him deliberately like this.

(Whether Mythal had, in previous incarnations, was another question entirely.)

He tried to cast a barrier again: was it his imagination, or did the magic come a shade more easily this time?

A second time, and he was sure. This malady was only temporary: his powers would return within a day or two.

His childish panic began to subside. As Zephyr flew west out of the Frostbacks, the part of him that watched – that dignified, silent persona that had allowed him to reassure Lady Montilyet and walk calmly to the battlements for Zephyr – was finally in the ascendant again. There were few of his eluvians that required only knowledge to open, and these did not include the one at Skyhold. But the eluvian under the twisted tree would work, if he had a sprig of felandaris. Felandaris he could harvest near the Pools of the Sun, to the north-west.

Urging Zephyr down, he scanned the moonlit mountains, seeking the great stone circles that Orlais had inherited from the Tevinter Imperium, built around the sacred steaming pools. Etienne’s Ring, they called it nowadays. The defensive cold had melted as the Inquisition had removed the crimson lyrium that Imshael had grown there, and the temperature was merely night-cold, the dawn another hour away.

Swooping down, he left Zephyr in the shadow of a mossy rock, and gathered felandaris in a leather herb cloth from his saddlebag, careful not to touch it with his hands. Thinking of Imshael made him think of Xebenkeck, and shudder. He’d fully intended to exile her, and cursed himself for his loss of focus, following the… the…

The panic was returning, and breathing in the heat of the geysers wasn’t helping him. He’d behaved like a randy teenager, and it was no use to admit that he’d enjoyed it – he expected better of himself!

He should have been more explicit with Virlath – _fenedhis,_ not in _that_ sense – but in his instructions. He’d simply never thought that she would wake him up so recklessly before he’d have a chance to exile Xebenkeck!

And now there was a distinct possibility that Xebenkeck would be Unbound, able to traverse the Veil at will! Virlath’s true spirit had claimed her throne, dominating her as she had dominated him, love deposing desire.

Now he was no longer fleeing for Aratishan, he regretted not having a crystal with him, in order to explain to her – or Skyhold – where he was, and warn her. Presumably Virla had her own, and Varric another one in Kirkwall. His agents had established they’d made six in total. Discounting Dorian’s, which Virla had said had been destroyed, and Leliana’s that he’d used last night, the others had presumably been restored to Dagna and Sera. It had been Dagna’s that Leliana had given him for his trip to Antiva, as she’d explained when he’d returned it.

The thought crossed his mind as he re-mounted Zephyr, that he could return at once, and talk to her, explain to her if no-one else that he must find another way to access the eluvians… but it would take time. Faster, surely, to travel to the twisted tree, and find her through the Crossroads, through the mirror still in Merrill’s room.

But when he reached the twisted tree, dawn shading pink the bare white branches, a terrible sight greeted him. A rock wraith must have shattered the controls. Without them, and without his magic, there was no way to dislodge the great stone wolf that barred the way down to the secret stores below.

White with fury, and refusing to let circumstance outweigh reason, Solas wheeled Zephyr round, and found a stream beside which he might sit. He must have meat and drink: that rabbit; this water. A blast of ice killed the small creature, almost painlessly. Thankfully he had enough magic to do that and to light a fire of twigs to cook it. Behind him, Zephyr was tapping her foot impatiently, scratching against the rocks. _If you want that ram, you’ll need to kill it yourself._

Solas was wiping his face clean of rabbit juices when he heard a voice behind him, its broad accent one he hadn’t heard for centuries… millennia, not since the Veil. “Not time to come out. No. Not yet.”

He stumbled to his feet, staring up at the mural of slaves and blighted halla painted on the rock high above him. Zephyr had reared up in surprise, and now pushed her way out from behind the tree, almost knocking him over as she splashed into the river. Spattered with water, he called out to the rocks: “Whimsy? Is that you?”

The spirit didn’t answer. With a frown, he walked up to the rocks. Even with his senses dulled, he could feel the power coming from a tiny cave, no taller than his waist. Pansies and lilies decorated it, symbols of humility.

As he bent down, the voice muttered: “Deviating from the plan. Keep the light out. Mirror sought for.”

“ _Andaran atish’an, falon._ ” No answer. It couldn’t hear him. Was it trapped? When he’d raised the Veil, had it been trapped here, unable to slip back to the Fade? Unable to penetrate the stone except with its voice? Somehow Zephyr must have woken it from slumber, just as he’d woken – or been woken? – from uthenera.

Fen’Harel turned back to the stream and called: “Zephyr! Show me what you did here?” His bond-mount blinked baleful amber eyes at him, the griffon equivalent of a long hard stare, and refused to budge from the water.

 _Humility. Humility._ He would have to use reason instead. Solas sank to his knees, cupping a pansy in his hand, and thought. When he’d heard her tapping, it had been the sound of claw on stone, not ground. He placed a hand on top of the cave, and pushed down on it twice. It didn’t yield. He needed to exert more pressure.

Sighing at what the greatest general-prince of Elvhenan had been reduced to, in this post-death innocence of his, he stepped up on to the cave, and began to jump. His bound feet brushed against the stone, tingling as they felt the snarl in the Veil: a pocket, where the worlds still coexisted. Hardly even a rift, the Veil was… absent.

His feet struck stone again, and he felt the Veil unfurl. Whimsy spoke: “Need more! More. Have to be ready.”

The scent of crystal grace assailed his nostrils, and the number 10 his sight. Whimsy had always been one of his – his brother’s – crazier friends, but this was frankly ridiculous. _Humility,_ he told himself with a snort.

He waded out to Zephyr, checking his saddlebags. There were six of the precious bell-like flowers in his bag, a little crushed perhaps, but serviceable. It took him another hour to find four more, and a ram for Zephyr, avoiding the giants, bronto, bears. When he returned, and laid the flowers on the cave, the spirit spoke again.

“The stairs! The stairs that go down. Way down. Way, way down. I'll be there. You'll be there.”

There was only one place he could think of that might match that description: another hideout his agents had used, far below the foundations of Suledin Keep. It was on the way back to Skyhold – if it turned out to be a false trail he’d return. The thought of Virla, waiting by the eluvian in Kirkwall, thinking he’d abandoned her…

 _You were going to abandon her,_ he thought. _You panicked, and you ran away._

Solas ground his teeth, and mounted Zephyr. Reason said she was strong enough to wake, was strong enough to defeat whatever demons lay within her path; that she would find her friends, would wait… would trust…

****

He’d never been this way himself, he thought, as he lit a veilfire torch and clambered up to the grey mirage. Still hardly any magic to speak of; he’d grabbed an abandoned staff and two sharp daggers on the way, as crude defence. The Keep had been simple to locate as he flew close to the ground, azure and gold Orlesian banners fluttering in the morning sunlight in place of the Inquisition’s sword and eye. From a distance, the mirage had looked like the surface of a boulder, but close up, from each side, it seemed more like powdery snow.

Regardless of whether Whimsy truly had a mirror waiting for him here, he ought to meet with the spirit. Leaving Zephyr at the top of the stairs, he began to descend. Twelve treads in each flight. One flight, a left-hand turn; curved flagstones covered in moss. The Veil ought to be thick here, like treacle. Two, three, four flights down…

As he turned the corner from the ninth flight down, he could see a dark blue mist through the archway at the foot of the next flight, a memory of lyrium perhaps, evaporating upwards to the arched roof sky. A chest was perched upon a flagstone outcrop, all that remained of the floor. He strode out carefully towards it.

“This is it! This is it! Use it,” snarled Whimsy’s voice. “I’m going. Laughing all the way!”

He opened the chest, and felt the spirit’s prison break, allowing it to slip back into the Fade. Later, he could thank it… if its gift brought fortune rather than its opposite. The chest contained a pouch of gold, which he tied to his belt in case of need, and a dwarf-made flower crown, with a lyrium vein sustaining six large daisies.

It was of modern-make, within the last four centuries at least. Most probably, a dwarf had been commissioned to produce it for an Orlesian duel, before it had been stashed here by some enterprising noble. Yet, silly as it was, he rather liked it. It reminded him of the flower crowns they’d made for ceremonies in Arlathan, the daisies symbolising chastity and purity and love. Whimsy had said _use it…_ so he perched it on his head.

Nothing changed. No mirror appeared. He stared at the broad triangle of light that marked a corner of the opposite wall, unreachable save by flight over the abyss. The stones there looked real enough, but maybe, if he flew across on Zephyr…? He began to run up the steps, then stopped at the top, glancing to the left. _Fascinating._ There was a discontinuity there, a sharp vertical line running up the stones of the wall. Another mirage, but a cleverer one this time. And through it… an open, singing eluvian, leading to the Crossroads.

Solas stepped through, relief bringing beads of sweat to his brow. It was even the right area of the Crossroads: there was Merrill’s eluvian, right across the bridge. Resolving to leave Zephyr where he’d left her, he strode out over the bridge. She was better in Emprise du Lion, by rock and air, than here, with its swirling tides of magic.

Halfway across the bridge his steps faltered. That eluvian was worse than closed, it was permanently locked: a dull black mirror, rather than the glowing red it ought to be. Even had he been stronger, he could not have felt through this. Had something smashed it from the other side? That seemed the likeliest explanation.

The burning panic threatened to subsume him once again, and to subdue it, he gripped his staff and focused on his memories of how the Crossroads fit together. He either needed to get Zephyr, or he needed another eluvian in Kirkwall… or Skyhold, where the crystals were. He ought not to have disappeared like this!

It was hard to figure out the maze, when flying was no option. Memory told him there had been another mirror, once his agents had salvaged from the Qunari and placed underground beneath the city, activated by a single password. That was remarkably fortunate; perhaps his luck had changed. But which way was it? He twisted his head around, scanning the furthest connected islands for the possible indicators: ravens, elven pillars… _ah!_

What would have taken him a few minutes on Zephyr’s back took him a quarter of an hour to reach, and he endeavoured not to second-guess his decision to leave the griffon behind. Strange how context changed things: usually he liked the feeling that no-one knew quite where he was. Now, he feared for Virla’s safety as much as for his own, desperate to know what had befallen her. Was she locked into the Fade? Was she locked in Merrill’s chambers?

He was at the new eluvian, whispering the remembered password like an invocation. The eluvian shimmered, its surface waving iridescent. All that he could sense beyond was a small dark shrine, a leap into the unknown.

Pride forbade him from turning back: he’d come this far; the only way was forward. Cast barrier, then… step.

The temple was empty. Or, as he determined on a second, sharper glance to the larger chamber to the left, empty of living people. Piles of skeletons were heaped against the walls like snow cleared from a path in spring. Skulls and spines of vertebrae were crammed as pillar decoration, lit by eerie emerald light. He’d never been here either, and wondered why his agents hadn’t mentioned what a gruesome place it was. Perhaps they were afraid of him, or too brutalised to care. This was Kirkwall, after all, where a Chantry had exploded.

Deathly certainty turned his veins to ice. This was no ordinary underground chamber, no mass grave from an unknown war. This was where the corpses had been thrown, their elven blood preserved to breach the Veil. This was where the magisters… no, not the magisters themselves, but servants, forced to hideous murder… murder he could not keep pace with… death on death on death, thinning and thinning and thinning the Veil…

_A wordless scream as if from the legions of dead slaves that rose to the zenith of the black sky… before the might of the seven Magisters Sidereal, the Veil shattered like the flimiest glass… hunger and envy in their hearts…_

Ice turned into nausea. Solas sank to his knees, hands over his eyes. When he’d raised the Veil, People were trapped in chambers not so far away from these, exits disappearing with the Fade. Those who did not suffocate, starved, their bodies disintegrating through the Veil. He was here, in Arlathan, and salvaged what he could.

Those he could not reach in time, if rage or fear possessed them, they possessed themselves. Waking corpses, ne’er beheld before, terrorising those who lived. Those who had been friends destroyed each other!

How could they forgive him? How could he forgive himself?

Pride was the only answer: _I was right._

Cole’s response was comforting, if true: _You didn’t do it to be right. You did it to save them._

He was not the magisters. They had not rebelled, as he had: they had _served_. He had not killed a thousand slaves a year for centuries, catching blood in grooves and sewers, funneled to a monstrous dragon glyph, then burnt into the sky with lyrium and chanting. They turned the Golden City black, and he must accept, allow – forgive! – himself, or risk the Silver City’s light, eternal separation from his love and all the good things of this world. Moons and boulders overhead must stay in place, and not come crashing down upon him… on all of them.

Breathing deeply, painfully, Solas began to search for an exit. Every door he found was barred.

His heart sinking, he returned to the chamber with the eluvian, and tried another direction, through the rows of stone sarcophagi, traces of blood and sweat and urine still befoulling the air. Steps led up, and at the end of the longest chamber, the ritual hall itself, was the expected statue of Dumat, its four arms braced and folded. The exit here was barred as well. It felt like some Qunari moral fable: to be here, within her city, yet so far. He would have to go back, empty-armed, to Skyhold… through the Crossroads, Emprise du Lion, fly across the Waking Sea. Had he had his magic, he might burn these doors away, or step into the Fade and send a message to her.

A girlish laugh behind him made him turn around. He froze, and levelled his staff at her. It looked like Virla, laughed like Virla… but it was a spirit. “It is forbidden to take that form,” he said – gently, for it was young.

The spirit span around, still laughing. “But how else is Allure expected to seduce you? This is just what you like!”

“You do not need to seduce me,” he said, encouraging it to walk with him. “Go back through the Veil. Look for a spirit of wisdom or compassion… or one named Audacity. Tell them where I am. Ask them to let Virlath know.”

“But we’ve only just met,” it said, smiling up at him in a way designed to make his heart melt.

It ached, that loss of innocence. Once, Virla had looked up at him and seen nothing more than a wandering apostate. Once, she’d fallen in love with him. Once, he’d allowed himself to pretend.

Now, when nothing was pretence and all was real, they neither of them knew where the other was. Solas sighed. “Your duty has been assigned you, _lethallin._ Pray do not let me distract you from it.”

“You mean to leave me,” it said, pouting with Virla’s face, brandishing her staff. “I cannot follow where you wish to go!” Too late he realised its fell intent: it swung the staff out like a sword, and shattered the eluvian.

“I needed that!” he cried. Fire raged in his mind, but when he tried to draw it out, only the tiniest flames sparked into life. Ashes smeared his face as he wept into his hands: bitter tears of humiliation; rage for past mistakes.

He didn’t see the spirit fade away… or the tears reflected in its eyes.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shrine where Solas is trapped can be found in the Dragon Age II expansion _The Exiled Prince_ , and is where Hawke and Sebastian Vael encounter the powerful desire demon Allure. This Allure, as you may have guessed, is the spirit that grows from her energies, and manifests where she fell. My theories of Kirkwall draw heavily on the codex [The Enigma of Kirkwall](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_The_Enigma_of_Kirkwall), and "the chamber where the Veil is at its thinnest" might well be this one that Solas finds. 
> 
> Some day, perhaps Solas will encourage Varric to write down the story of Emerius, the Imperium's City of Chains, all the way back through the last stand of the elves on Sundermount, to the reason why the varterral guards this city. Kirkwall may or may not be physically built on Arlathan, though I would like to think it was. The varterral near Kirkwall supposedly guards "a city in the mountains beloved of Dirthamen", suggesting that its roots go back to pre-Veil times.


	33. Discernment

A small fire burned in a brazier fixed to the opposite wall, illuminating little of the darkened upper hallway. Virla, hidden in the shadows, stared numbly. In its glow she saw again the larger fire burning in the bedchamber to her left, and the sweat-licked, unclothed bodies writhing on the thick red rug in front of it: amber, cedar and ebony.

The thrusting images persisted in her mind. She’d seen naked bodies enough times, Void knew; and demons seducing her with promises of lust. But this was the first time she’d spied on a couple making love in this world.

Her hands slipped with sweat as she grabbed her staff from where she’d strung it behind her back. Not even violent – that was the shame and joy of it. A slow rhythm Solas might have… It was almost beautiful, as if power and strength and virility met grace and tranquil charm and sang in harmony together. Harsh cries and moans of satisfaction – some low and masculine, the others high and girlish – were audible even through the thick wooden door. Had it been truly Josephine and Hawke – clandestinely married, say, since Josephine’s views on sex outside of marriage were well known – she would have had no business here, and ought to depart at once. 

Instead, she could not leave. If the Champion of Kirkwall, cautious after all he’d seen – abominations, demons, his own mother taken by a killer, appearing as a desire demon! – had been seduced by a fraud, it was her clear duty to alert him to his situation. But how best to persuade him?

Heavy metallic footsteps abruptly sounded on the treads of the stairs, approaching where she pressed herself against the wall and waited. Her heart beat faster, anticipating danger, and she breathed out silently.

 _Not_ Audacity, she thought, remembering the scuff of his leather boots; and not Varric, whose pace was shorter; and certainly not Orana, who’d worn elven footwraps. If none of those, then who’d let the newcomer in?

She’d barely time to think all that before the steps’ owner crossed the hall to stand before her, finding her with no difficulty in the darkness. It looked like Solas… gilded armour, wolf pelt flaunted crosswise… and it smiled.

“ _Vhenan,_ ” said the apparition, its body blocking out the brazier’s light, a mailed hand twisting the staff from her grasp. She gasped, and made to reach after it, but he tossed it away carelessly, holding her hands in place. “I am pleased to find you here. The Champion has consented to us sharing his spare bedchamber tonight.”

It was very persuasive, and she almost let him lead her away, but… “How did you get in here?”

Solas chuckled, with a grim undertone that made her shiver. “Audacity let me in. I am afraid, _‘ma lath,_ that I have had to punish your protégé. It watched me laying with you in the Fade, while knowing that it was against the Rules. Its memory has been expunged. I fear it will have to re-earn its place as my agent.”

She had no way of knowing if that were a lie, but must assume she was alone. Another, louder cry penetrated through the door, and she gestured at it, flailing for a plan. “Solas, I fear that that is not Josephine in there!”

“I do not see that the Champion’s nocturnal habits are our concern,” said Solas stiffly. “Lady Montilyet came here with me, through another eluvian elsewhere in the City. She was… remarkably eager to see him.”

Virla pressed on. “It is a demon, Solas _._ We have to help him!”

With a disconcertingly fast change of tack, her interlocutor adapted. It kicked the door open and dragged her in. Before she could prevent it, it closed the door and locked it, throwing the key into the brazier on the inner wall. In Solas’ most severe and distant manner, it said: “No. _It_ is helping _me_. Bed, _vhenan._ Your persuasion in the Fade renewed my taste for the workings of desire. Unexciting to have just two involved, don’t you agree?”

She had to remind herself that this was not the Fade: that she could not wake up; that Garrett Hawke was real. His body lay on top, heaving with exertion, his head hidden in the crook of not-Josephine’s shoulder, his muscled thighs dripping with sweat… underneath the dark legs twined around them. The bed that not-Solas was towing her to was just like her own in Skyhold… and the Silver City. _Which one is Xebenkeck? What is at stake here?_

“Look at me, Virlath,” said Solas’ voice, devastatingly accurate, and for a moment she froze, fearing he was real.

Then she felt the thick golden rope of the bedpost, and clung to it. It was real; and regardless of whether it was Solas, this was _not_ the way she wanted things to be. Resisting the demon’s attempts to seat her on its lap, she focused her attention on the figure of Josephine, willing the demon to appear as it truly was. Its eyes blinked open, no longer Josephine’s light hazel ones, but deeper... and it stared up at Solas’ face in awestruck wonder.

“I’m so glad you escaped,” said Josephine’s voice. The woman was lying under Hawke, her long black hair untied and splayed out round her, her cheeks flushed purple, her… its! Its! Its ample chest rising and falling rapidly.

Hawke had lifted his head from where it had fallen. His voice was light, almost amused: “Why, was he trapped?”

“In the place of the dead where you once were,” said not-Josephine. She sounded upset, and spoke rapidly: “It was my fault! I broke the mirror. I… meant to have him for my own. He told me not to take _her_ form.”

The amusement left Hawke’s face entirely, as if the horrible truth were dawning. “Josephine? Wait… what’s going on here?” As the demon’s hold began to weaken, its skin softly glowing, Hawke blanched in shock. Bracing his arms on the floor, he pushed himself back… out… and up from her on to his knees, staring at not-Josephine in horror. Virla took the opportunity of the distraction to feel into the Veil and confirm that _hers_ was Xebenkeck.

“What have you done with him?” snapped Virla, turning to the image of Solas. No point in wasting effort trying to force Xebenkeck out of this form.

Xebenkeck continued to ape the mannerisms of an ancient elvhen god. “ **I** did nothing. The credit is hers.”

“Who are you all?” gasped Hawke, turning away from Virla and grabbing a short pair of leggings from the floor to tug them on in an extremely belated attempt at modesty. “I thought we were in the Fade…”

“This is Xebenkeck,” said Virla quickly, earning herself a look of pained disgust. “That is one of her demons.”

“Do not trust her,” said the demon. It drew itself up, looking painfully austere. “This demon took the form of my desires, as that one took the form of yours. Xebenkeck is dead… you killed her yourself, remember?”

The Champion of Kirkwall shook his head. “I heard you... _unexciting to have just two involved…_ ”

A flush of delicate embarrassment lit Solas’ cheeks, and Virla had to struggle to remember who was real again. “Such a pity your mother told you it was wrong to take pleasure with an elf. So many years of longing, never consummated… Fenris, Merrill, Tallis… and now my betrothed wife. Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

Hawke looked sick. “Only a demon would know my heart so well,” he said, looking helplessly at Virla.

Solas turned to her. “Of all the humans you have encountered, this one pleases you the most,” he said, his voice a gentle caress. She could almost hear the softness of a mother in its tones. “Why not sleep with him tonight?”

“No!” cried Virla, rage burning caution. She glared down at the demon sitting on the floor. “What happened?”

The demon shuddered with the effort of obeying Virla’s will and denying Xebenkeck’s. Tears ran down its cheeks. “ _She_ captured… me. I was meant… to tell you where he was. That was… is… my duty. He is...”

A blast of power from Xebenkeck’s body burst across the room, shredding her robes, shattering the wardrobes into wood and sending logs from the fire shooting up the chimney. When the light faded, only a pool of essence remained where the other demon had been. “You bitch!” yelled Virla. “You killed your own! You lied to me!”

“Demons have no loyalty,” said Hawke, as Xebenkeck twisted into her true form. He had grabbed his staff from a corner and span a prison of telekinetic force around the risen Forbidden, who cackled as she grew and grew.

“Tell me where he is,” pleaded Virla, even as she added her magic to Hawke’s, burning the demon with her rage and slashing at it with her sword. Combat restored her energies. “Solas. Tell me where he’s trapped!”

“You were a fool to let me free,” said Xebenkeck, still laughing madly. “What do I care for your Silver City?”

The malice in the Undying’s eyes was beyond comprehension: no pain would compel the demon to divulge what it knew, nor whether it knew anything at all. Virla clamped her mouth shut, furiously cold, and cloaked herself in the Fade, stepping forward into her nemesis. Rematerializing inside Xebenkeck, she scattered the demon’s form across the room with the full force of her will, just as Hawke let fly a massive stonefist. The spell caught her unawares, not being used to fighting with the Champion, and she flew back on to the bed, badly winded.

She opened her eyes to find Hawke leaning over her, a worried expression on his face. “Virla?” he asked.

“I hope you _don’t_ think… I’m a demon,” she managed, sitting up, still gasping for breath.

Someone was hammering at the door, and she heard the familiar sound of Varric’s lockpick being employed. She glanced down, horrified to see that her robes were little more than tattered shreds over torn bindings. In her rage she hadn’t noticed that one breast was exposed, hanging loose. Before she could wrap herself in the bedclothes, or suggest Hawke find a pair of shirts for them both, the door was flung open with a crash.

Virla folded her arms across her chest, and felt the blush rise up her body as four men ran into the room. Or… three men and a spirit, assuming that still wasn’t the real Zevran Arainai. _But can he… it… be trusted?_

The Iron Bull stormed up to Hawke, yanking him away from the bed. “ _Vashedan,_ Hawke! What are you two doing? She’s not just any redhead elf! Have you any idea how powerful Fen’Harel is?”

“Let go of him! This isn’t how it looks!” cried Virla, glaring up at the huge warrior. “Hawke was attacked!”

With a raised eyebrow over his solitary eye, Bull released his hold on Hawke’s forearm. His eyes followed to where Virla pointed out the pool of demon essence on the floor. “Huh. Demons. Right. Hate this shitty city.”

Dorian, more tactful, had retrieved an old set of Cumberland circle robes, dark grey with gold thread, from the remains of the wardrobe, and walked to the bed to lay them beside Virla. “The demons are gone, right?”

She nodded, avoiding looking at Audacity. Ignoring the robes, she turned to Hawke: “We must find Solas, fast. They said he was in the place of the dead, where you once were. With a broken mirror.”

“Hawke was with you when you fell into the abyss at Adamant,” said Dorian. The Champion, in the middle of dressing himself, made a face. Ignoring it, the magister continued: “You said there were broken eluvians there.”

“No…” said Virla, slowly, thinking it through. “It must be somewhere where there was an intact eluvian today.”

“I’ve never seen an intact eluvian, except the one Merrill mended… and the ones we travelled through this week,” said Hawke. He frowned, and a dull flush crept up his cheeks. “Inquisitor, we should let you dress.”

She nodded, not catching his eyes again lest the embarrassment of Xebenkeck’s revelations to them both take root again. Once the door had closed quietly behind them all, she dragged on the robes, ruthlessly shrinking them with magic to her size, and fastened a long leather belt around her waist. Her body convulsed with fear for Solas. The demon had said it was meant to tell her where he was. He must be injured, hurt… somewhere he couldn’t escape, if he’d needed to send demons as messengers. _The place of the dead, where you once were..._

Audacity was waiting outside the room, holding out her staff for her to take, explaining that the others were waiting for her downstairs. “ _Ir abelas, mirthadra’asha_ ,” he whispered. _He?_ She was starting to think of him like Cole: man, not spirit. Bodies… changed things. “Xebenkeck put a ward on the room. I couldn’t get in after you.”

“Can you look for Solas in the Fade?” asked Virla, equally quietly. He nodded. “His body is most likely trapped somewhere this side of the Veil… but you might be able to find him wandering the Fade. I’ll join you when I can.”

They went down the stairs, illuminated now by further braziers, candles and a fire in the entrance hall which Orana was just making up again. Audacity pointed to Hawke’s servant. “I meant to say… she was one of _ours_.”

Virla’s eyes went wide as she realised the implication. “Orana… was an agent of Fen’Harel?”

Audacity’s teeth flashed white in Zevran’s scarred, tanned face. “Insofar as any of us are. Fell in love with one of yours and his, helped him with some jobs for _him_. She’d no idea of her real master.”

The spirit strode to the front door, opened and closed it for effect, still grinning, then slipped into the Fade. Virla ignored the sounds of increasingly heated argument coming from the room to her right, and knelt down beside the woman at the fireplace. “Orana,” she began. “I need your help again. Do you know what an eluvian is?”

The fair-haired elf’s hands trembled as she carried another log into the fire with the tongs, where it crackled and began to catch. “I did hear Master talk, my lady, of the mirror at Mistress Merrill’s house. I never saw it.”

Virla softened her voice. “Did you ever hear anyone talk of another mirror in Kirkwall? While Hawke was away.”

Orana glanced nervously over her shoulder, as if to check that no-one else was watching them. Virla held her breath and waited. “Under your estate, Lady Inquisitor Comtesse,” whispered the servant. “I… heard there is a terrible place there. Skeletons and skulls, and wicked, wicked altars. I never saw it myself. You couldn’t get in, unless you were a mage and could transform into a bird. Cillian said there was a mirror… oh!”

It was a good lead, and Virla smiled reassuringly at Orana. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell them where I learnt this.”

“Thank you, my lady,” said Orana gratefully. Then she looked up at the stairs, and frowned. “My lady, if it is not impertinent… I did not see Lady Montilyet come down. Is there anything I can take up to her?”

“Lady Montilyet left while you were at the Keep,” said the Comtesse of Kirkwall, still smiling. “Rest easy.”

****

Still dark, and Varric had broken into her estate with all the subtlety of a rogue-turned-Viscount. The dwarf chattered to fill the silence as they trotted through the corridors and empty rooms, their footsteps echoing loudly off blank walls and uncarpeted floors. Bran had the keys at the Keep, he’d explained, but none of them fancied waking the dour seneschal, nor wasting any more time in locating Solas. Bull was still glowering at Hawke’s back, his face pale green in the Veilfire light she’d cast, and Dorian was painfully quiet.

After a couple of wrong turns, they found themselves in the cellars, surrounded by huge oak barrels, the scent of wine and wood heavy in the air. Hawke frowned at the corner. “I could have sworn the door was here,” he said.

Dorian walked up to the wall. “It’s a mirage,” he said, waving an airy hand to reveal, instead of a blank wooden wall, a door. He opened it, and all five of them peered down at the vertiginous drop that yawned a few paces beyond the door. The wooden steps that would have been used had rotted away. Even had they a rope, the entrance to the… whatever it was beyond… was blocked by boulders, all except for a small gap at the very top.

“Can either of you shapeshift?” asked Virla. Dorian and Hawke shook their heads. “Then I’ll go and look.”

Before they could object on grounds of safety she shifted, flying down and across to the boulders. Her raven wings took her easily through the opening, and she landed, an elf again, in a small chamber with arches flanked by pillars decorated with skulls. The whole place felt oppressed, as if a Titan’s earthquake would have crushed it but for the weight of history it contained. _The air’s like stone here,_ she thought. _Incompressible, indestructible._

Neither of the chambers to the side contained the man she sought, nor any hint of him. Virla ran on, shivering in the cold dead air, searching crevices and crannies, tripping over bones and tumbled flagstones, trembling at the thinness of the Veil and the omnipresent darkness. Something terrible had happened here. Twice she had to shift again, to fly through the panels of locked latticed iron doors. Back, and the veilfire in her hand lit opals and diamonds in the dirt beneath her feet… and bowls, torture implements, and skeletons beyond counting.

 _The place of the dead… where Hawke once was._ Allure and Lady Harimann… the altar of Dumat below Kirkwall.

Of course! It had been in the Tale of the Champion all along. The demon she had met must have… been young. Virla swallowed, hard, telling herself Cole was human now, and he had Maryden. Age was… different for spirits.

Beginning to wonder if she’d ever find the way back to her companions, Virla flew through another latticed door, and was startled to glimpse a veilfire brazier burning to the right, its light glimmering off broken mirror shards… and the bald head of an elf, kneeling, patiently piecing them together like some arcane glass mosaic.

She flew straight to him… then, before she shifted back, reached out into the Veil, to be sure it was him, and not some further plot of Xebenkeck or any of her ilk. He’d already looked up, hope flickering in his eyes… and there was no doubt, it was him. Ash smeared over his face, a smashed mirror, in this ancient place of the dead…

“I found you,” she whispered, a smile stretching her lips as Solas stood and hugged her tightly, his arms slipping comfortably around her waist. “If you decide you can’t fix the mirror, I found a way for us to fly out of here.”

He stepped back, his expression rueful as he looked down at her. “You were unaware of what you did to me?”

“I didn’t break the mirror,” she objected. “That was… well, Allure, I presume.”

“Indeed,” said Solas, his lips thinning in remembered anger. Then he smiled. “Did it find you? I asked it to.”

Virla sighed, and began to explain what had happened, determined not to leave anything out in case he heard from another source. “I think… Hawke is embarrassed I know he finds me attractive,” she concluded, with another sigh.

Solas’ lips twitched. “The Champion goes up in my estimation. You are a very desirable woman, _emma lath._ ”

She wasn’t sure she was ready to treat it as a matter for humour yet, but countered: “You wouldn’t share, though.”

“Naturally not. We ought to arrange he marries Lady Montilyet instead,” said Solas. Then the twinkle in his eyes faded into sadness. “ _Vhenan,_ you seemed reluctant to divulge Xebenkeck’s death. Did you fear my disapproval?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I thought you would be displeased with me. For killing an ancient spirit.”

“She cannot truly be killed,” he explained. “Her memories will be returned to her. It is necessary, since a world without desire or purpose would be an abomination. Some day… well. You and Hawke have bought us time.”

He paused and stared down at the jagged mirror puzzle, as if envisioning some dark future in the shards.

“This is a terrible place,” said Virla, laying a hand on his arm. “My companions will be worried. Shall we return?”

“I cannot fly,” said Solas bluntly. “Your waking spell within the Fade, after we… well. It cut me from the Fade.”

Virla’s blood turned to ice. “But… you are not Tranquil… you lit the brazier…”

“A temporary malady: I will recover fully in a few hours,” he said, reaching out to grasp her hands. “Pray don’t distress yourself, _vhenan._ The fault is _mine_ , not yours. I should have warned you… and of Xebenkeck.”

“You cannot warn me of everything that might happen in the world,” said Virla, shaking her head, her eyes bright. “Have you always judged yourself this harshly? You surely cannot expect to be omniscient and infallible.”

“I used to be,” said Solas, with a twisted grimace, and she wasn’t sure if it had been intended as a jest.

****

Several hours later, after she had flown back, arranged for the team to climb down by rope and dislodge the boulders by a back-breaking combined effort of magic, muscle and explosive, lever open the doors, and finally led Solas out – blaming, as directed, his indisposition on a shapeshift-prohibition spell that Allure had cast, prolonged by the shattering of the mirror – they stood by Merrill’s cracked eluvian.

“Can you fix it?” she asked.

Solas took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them, with a faint smile on his lips, the eluvian was whole. Merrill squealed in delight, Varric swore, Hawke grinned, and even The Iron Bull took a step back.

But Dorian fell to his knees, covering his face: “Maker… _What has been forgotten has not yet been lost._ ”

The smile died on Solas’ lips. He sighed, and for a moment there was silence. “Andraste 1:13,” he said, and knelt down on the floor. He placed a hand on the magister’s shoulders. “I have not forgotten Tevinter, Dorian Pavus.”

Dorian looked up, his eyes bright with tears. He stared at the eluvian. “This… this… could save us from the Qun.”

They all watched Solas’ face grow hard with anguish. “You once said, Dorian,” he began, selecting his words with exquisite care, “that the Imperium was founded on the notion it defeated Arlathan. Is it ready to accept the truth?”

  



	34. Preparations

Virla gazed down at the garden courtyard, touched to see the efforts her clan had put into decorating it in Dalish fashion for the morrow. Chantry and Inquisition banners, and the smaller Andrastian statues, had been removed to other courtyards, replaced by shrines and offering jars. Flowers and ribbons brightened poles and pillars, the surrounds of Skyhold’s well, and the ages-old Fereldan woodcarving of Andraste too large to be resettled.

It was nearing the middle of the day, and the sun beat down. The garden was shaded in the afternoons, lying as it did in the lee of Skyhold’s main tower; but in the early morning, when the ceremony would take place, the light would sparkle on the water in the sacred vessels placed around the bonding circle. That circle was already marked by ropes laid on the ground, each a semi-circle ending at opposite pillars of the ancient stone arch.

Josephine, standing next to her, passed her a plan. Most guests would watch them from a vantage point like hers, leaning over a balcony. Divine Victoria would sit in solemn, permitted state within the stone gazebo, attended only by Seeker Pentaghast and Madame de Fer, with even Arl Teagan banished to the rooftops, the potential snub mitigated by a prominent role for him later in the Summerday service at the Grand Cathedral. This was, after all, a _private_ Dalish bonding ceremony. Virla glanced up at the skies, absently marking birds.

“Most Holy thought it best,” said Josephine, “to give the place of honour to the Grand Enchanter.”

“Yes,” said Virla. “Knight-Enchanters have long served the Divine, and Vivienne can fight well in close quarters.”

“You fear an attack, Your Worship?”

Virla didn’t answer directly, saying instead: “I should like Solas to inspect these plans. You said that Keeper Hawen had returned, and that he had professed himself content with them? I should like to see him also.”

“Yes, Your Worship. He returned yesterday, and the Baron and I spoke with him this morning, to ensure the clan had everything they needed. The baby boy does well, I hear; and your Keeper seemed in perfect health.”

“Good. Were rooms found for all those from Kirkwall?” Josephine nodded, and she continued her instructions: “Thank you. Varric undertook to ensure that Merrill Sabrae did not find out Fen’Harel’s identity by accident. Could you arrange for me to meet her, Varric, and the Champion, as soon as they are available? Let Hawke sleep if he needs – we had a gruelling fight last night. I apologise for the timing of our arrival so soon after dawn, and for immediately retiring to my bed, but Solas was insistent that I do so; and, in truth, I needed rest.”

Four hours of uneventful sleep had been the result of that insistence. Her betrothed had met her briefly in the Silver City before embarking on his duties: the safety of their eggs; the monitoring of souls and plots alike. Her eyes tracked the flight of a hawk hovering above the mage tower. Unusual to see one in the mountains.

Josephine smiled. “We were simply glad to know you were all safe. Though I did not hear all of what went on…?”

“Once Solas and I are safely bonded, I should love to catch up properly, Josie,” said Virla, resisting the urge to gossip. Now she had awoken, she must find Keeper Hawen first and determine the risk that other Dalish Keepers might attempt to infiltrate – or even stop – the ceremony to “protect” her from the Dread Wolf.  

Josephine accepted the mild reproof with characteristic grace. “I shall look forward to that greatly. Do you wish me to send a servant to wake Messere Solas, or to let him sleep?”

Over Josephine’s shoulder, the red-eyed goshawk was heading straight for them, its aspect bearing the typical ferocity of its kind. Acting on instinct, Virla flung a barrier about them both, and stepped in front of her friend.

The bird shifted before it landed, forming into… Solas, and yes, it was truly him. “My apologies, Lady Montilyet,” he said, with a curt bow to them both. His face was grim. “Inquisitor _,_ a dragon approaches from the west. I will investigate, but not engage. If I have not returned in five minutes, start to execute our defensive plan.”

He jumped over the parapet, becoming a falcon, and wheeled around the courtyard once to gain height before disappearing over the roof of the Hall. Virla shook her head in disbelief. _How did the Keepers find a dragon?_

“When he speaks like that,” said Josephine, her mouth still open, “you can imagine him commanding armies.”

Josephine was _not_ a soldier. The Inquisitor grabbed the woman’s hand, and ran with her towards the Great Hall balcony. “Find Cullen and Harding,” she commanded. “Bring them here. We had a plan for dragon attack.”

The dragon must be hidden behind the range of peaks to the west, visible to a hawk’s sharp eyesight. If it were the Dalish Keepers’, sending Fen’Harel out as scout was reckless, tactless… if you didn’t know his power.

A small dot crested the mountains, a familiar falcon, and in less than a minute he was back again, the grim look replaced by one of weary exasperation. “Morrigan,” he said. “Tallis. Morrigan’s baby. And your former clanmate Soren Lavellan – I assume to bond with Nissa here tomorrow. They have landed on the road an hour’s march away. Presumably, Morrigan had realised that flying in sight of Skyhold might invite an aggressive response.”

Cullen ran out on to the balcony, wielding – of all incongruous things – a hefty tome of poetry from the library. “Josephine said… it was urgent,” he said, more out of breath than Solas was. “Something… about a… dragon?”

“Morrigan has decided to attend our bonding ceremony,” said Solas, with an admirably blank face. Virla had to look away, before she burst into most un-Inquisitorial giggles. “I recommend we ride out with mounts for them.”

****

The unexpected expected arrival meant that some of the rearranged plans for the day’s activities had had to be further rearranged. Neither she nor Solas had been able to get Hawen on his own, to speculate on what the Keepers’ plans might be, or even to confirm what he had told them. A bard singing rude songs near the aravels had to be persuaded to go elsewhere. Vivienne’s graceful arboreal sculptures in the courtyard had been found with the words _Papae_ and _Mamae_ carved deep into the ice, and the Grand Enchanter’s fury had to be calmed.

The arrival of Soren Lavellan – and Nissa’s unbridled excitement, and the necessary addition of a second bonding ceremony while she and Solas were in Val Royeaux – absorbed all the clan’s remaining diplomatic energies.

Josephine found a room for Morrigan to rest in with baby Silvius. Leliana was exchanging news with Bull. Solas offered to escort Dorian to his camp to meet some elven mages from Tevinter. Dorian, surprised, accepted. Sera took Tallis to the tavern. Harding emerged with a sheaf of defensive plans, and retreated to the war room with Cullen, Hawke and Fenris. Sister Clemency swept a bemused Arl Teagan off to be fitted with ceremonial robes.

No-one knew where Deshanna was. Varric and Merrill had vanished, so Josephine postponed the meeting again.

Cole and Valya returned on Revas, having tracked a trail they’d thought belonged to Zephyr as far as the Emerald Graves. “I found an old notebook,” said Cole, thrusting a battered book into her hands. “For you both.”

Solas, back from the camp, had grown suddenly pale, but before she could ask why, or glance at the book in her hands, Josephine urged her away for a final dress fitting, using the time to run through lists of those who would accompany them to Val Royeaux, and those who would return to Skyhold for the evening ball they were hosting.

“You should only be in Orlais for an hour, Your Worship,” she warned. “Please do not get caught up in anything.”

****

Hawen had only reluctantly consented to Josephine’s plea for a short rehearsal of the Dalish ceremony at the fourth bell after midday, so when Solas failed to arrive on time, the Antivan almost tore the pins out of her hair. She ran out of the garden courtyard, harrying her assistants to the four corners of the fortress – and the camp – in search of the elusive groom. Virla stood stiffly underneath the arch, trying to maintain her poise.

It was the first chance she’d had to be alone with her Keeper in days, since before Deshanna’s arrival.

“You said you had left Keeper Deshanna explaining Fen’Harel’s return to the other Keepers,” she began.

“Yes,” said Hawen. He pressed a hand to his temples, as if deciding whether he ought to share intelligence or not. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Some… wished to take a vote on whether I ought to approve your bonding. I… felt it an impertinence, and left. The Arlathvhen ought not to interfere in the _internal_ matters of a clan.”

“You could not have taken any other view,” said Virla, seeking to reassure him. “To do so would have given the impression that you doubted your decision. Do you think there will be a vote? An attempt to interfere?”

“Perhaps,” said Hawen. “For what it is worth, Deshanna is persuaded of the merits of the match. Others too.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Virla, feeling a weight lifting from her shoulders. To be reviled by elves she scarcely knew was one thing, but she’d feared Deshanna’s disapproval. “But how were you all called together before?”

“It is a secret of the Keepers,” said Hawen, staring at the sky. His hand traced lines on the ancient stone of the arch. “Though… a Keeper is permitted to share it with the First of their Clan, if they fear approaching enemies.”

“They might kill us for adopting Fen’Harel,” said Virla, suddenly wondering if Solas’ tardiness was deliberate.

“They might try,” said Hawen, his lips set in a thin line. Then his eyes flashed. “Very well. Barring the most recent Arlathvhen, the clans were called to convene by an enchanted pulse that ran through each Keeper’s ring.”

He held out his hand, allowing Virla to inspect the band of sylvanwood. When she felt through the Veil, she could sense the circle of living sap that ran around inside the band. “How was the magic triggered?” she asked.

“There was a sending ring, held by Clan Tanaleth. Made by Tanaleth, the great smith of Halamshiral, it linked the sap of every sylvan that contributed a ring. With it, Keeper Eliel Tanaleth could send a message to the clans. We did not use it for the Arlathvhen in 8151, since Clan Lavellan and the Inquisition had arranged the date and site, and you had sent out messages. I ought to have suspected then that Eliel had lost the ring, and was too proud to admit it. At the time, it seemed wise to keep its existence, and Tanaleth’s role, a secret from the Inquisition.”

Virla thought of Merrill’s ring, and decided not to mention it. Instead, she nodded. “I understand. Go on.”

“Three days ago, as I spoke with Deshanna in a nearby valley, we felt the pulsing from our rings. A distress call.”

“You didn’t suspect a trap?” asked Virla, incredulous.

“The closer to the source, the stronger the pulse,” said Hawen, with a sigh. “We ought to have returned and told you, but the source felt close at hand. We assumed we were the nearest, and began to fly to aid our sister clan.”

“You didn’t turn around when you realised the source was leading you astray?”

“You have met Eliel. She would not use such a powerful artifact lightly. And… birds are not as smart as elves. After an hour of flight, you work on instinct not on reason. Yet, even when we crossed the Waking Sea, and landed late at night in a sacred glade near Sundermount, and entered the cave we saw, we hardly suspected betrayal even then. We entered the main chamber, which seemed empty. And then… we fell asleep, and found ourselves in the cages you saw. Whatever demon called us there had timed the messages to pull us in together.”

It had worked on their desires to play the hero. Her own example can have scarcely helped with that. “Xebenkeck must have found the ring, and sought to play with you. Like a cat with elven mice.”

“A cat the Dread Wolf chased away,” said Hawen, making a gesture of respect. Then his voice dropped low. “Virlath – that other wolf I saw, did it hurt you? I could not see all that happened beyond the demon’s barriers.”

“No, it did not hurt me,” said Virla. “Besides, it happened in the Fade. Demons appear differently to each of us.”

“My greatest fear was that Fen’Harel would break off the betrothal, when he saw you with the wolf,” said the old Keeper. Then he paused, and worry filmed his eyes. “Where is he? I promised Soren we would talk after.”

“Perhaps we should have the statue stand in for him, the one Taniel has made,” said Virla, trying to laugh it off.

Hawen frowned at her. “You do not need to pretend to feel less than you do, _da’len_ ,” he said. “You have spent two years already, separated from the one you love. I know you fear him leaving you again. I… understand.”

“He told me he would not,” said Virla, in a smaller voice than she had intended, remembering Solas’ face gone pale. Hawen’s sympathy was all the more upsetting for being unexpected. Then, as if a dam had broken, she hit her hand against the stone of the arch. “Why do you support me in this bonding? How _can_ you understand?”

The Keeper flinched, as if the sight of her wounded fury pained him deeper than he cared to admit. He led her to the steps nearby. “Sit down, _da’len_. You… are very like your mother when you are angry.”

Virla felt anger fall away like snow from branches in the spring, to be replaced by puzzlement. “My… mother?”

“Sulahnera Lavellan. First to Keeper Admael Lavellan before their deaths in 8131, soon after you were born.”

“The Keeper before Deshanna, yes. When they died, she came from Clan Istimaethoriel. He was my father.”

“No,” said Hawen quietly, shaking his head. “Yet that is what they told Deshanna, and what she says she told you too, having never had reason to doubt it. And all those who thought otherwise are dead, except for me.”

“All those who knew… what? _Fenedhis,_ you’re not going to tell me that Fen’Harel is my father, are you?”

Hawen looked shocked. “Creators, _da’len,_ whatever made you think that? No, Virlath. **I** am your father.”

She shifted a handsbreadth closer, tracing the outlines of his face. The older members of Clan Lavellan had said she had her mother’s distinctive eyes and hair, but yes, there was some possible resemblance, something in the shape of the cheekbones and chin. And his ears… yes, she could see it. Yet, she doubted. “You? Are you sure? How?”

“I cannot be sure of anything, except that it is possible and that you do not favour Keeper Admael, may Falon’Din protect his soul.” He took a deep breath. “I shall tell it as if it were a tale of Arlathan, lest my emotions get the better of me. In the year 8130, the twenty-first of this so-called Dragon Age, I was First to Keeper Taerahal. Your mother was at that time the Second in Clan Lavellan. We had been told that we should be bonded that year, the first Arlathvhen since she came of age, and that she would come to my clan.”

“You must have been much older than her,” said Virla. “I believe she was younger than me when she died.”

“I was,” said Hawen. “I had met her as she grew, at previous Arlathvhens, and knew she was strong and kind. Taerahal had seen I admired her, and had waited for her to turn of age, rather than insist upon another bond.”

Virla had been following the story closely. “I think I can guess what happened. Keeper Rasa Lavellan died.”

“Yes, on the journey to the Arlathvhen. I am sure the story is often told in Clan Lavellan. Admael succeeded her as Keeper, and Sulahnera became his First. It meant she could not be bonded to me. When they told me the news, grief broke upon me, yet I hid it for Sulahnera’s sake. Admael was a good man, unbonded – closer to her age. I assumed the new Keeper would bond her to himself. That is what I expected. However, I was wrong.”

The cadence of his voice made it seem a long-lost tale, not… real. “What… happened?”

“On the first eve of the Arlathvhen, Taerahal met with the other Keepers. He returned and told me that they had already marked my expected bonding with Sulahnera as the one destined for the rite of _adahl’sulahn._ ”

 _Tree-song._ Virla’s eyes narrowed. “Solas mentioned that rite. Has he discussed this with you at all, asked you…?”

Hawen responded gravely: “No. Fen’Harel may suspect, for he is clever, but surely only Falon’Din could read the minds of the dead! And, if he does suspect, he has been too polite to mention it to me… or you, it seems.”

She had to be content with that. “ _Ir abelas,_ Keeper. I interrupted your tale. Please, continue.”

“It was only later that I found out he had not told me the whole truth. In fact, two couples completed the rite that Arlathvhen, and only one – not ours – was officially approved. But at the time, I knew nothing of the arguments. That night, Keeper Taerahal brought me to an aravel, set in the heart of the forest. Your mother was there, with Keeper Admael. They explained that it was permitted – nay, required – that I should lay with her.”

She could imagine the scene – her mother, the man that loved her, the two Keepers. “Was she willing?”

He flushed. “I don’t… yes. Shy, and nervous… and beautiful, of course – but not at all reluctant. She consented.”

“She had expected to be betrothed to you,” said Virla, comprehending it completely. “Did she still expect that?”

Hawen sighed. “We both did. Then… the next day, Admael explained to us that we could not be bonded.”

“They had lied to you?”

Remembered fury glittered in his eyes. “They lied to us. Not actively, but in omission. Sulahnera was distraught.”

 _Understandably._ “But why? Admael had only just become Keeper of Lavellan. Did he not understand the Rules?”

“Perhaps. His decision to bond with her, likely when she discovered she was with child, suggests he felt a guilt about his part in it. But for Taerahal it was a matter of faith. He had studied _adahl’sulahn_ in depth – its history, its purpose – and knew that the People needed the strongest mages of the clans to serve its purpose.”

“Its purpose being,” concluded Virla, as the pieces fell into place, “to create a mage that might bear Arlathan.”

“I never understood that part,” said Hawen. Then his tone sharpened. “How do you know that?”

The door opened behind them, and they both leapt to their feet, seeing at the same time a tall, and slightly flushed, ancient elvhen god, a sullen grey griffon trailing behind him. Mutton juices dripped from Zephyr’s chin.

“ _Ir abelas,_ Keeper _,_ ” he said to Hawen, as Zephyr soared angrily up to her roost on the battlements.

“Solas,” said Virla, giddy with relief. _Zephyr. Of course_. “Hawen has been telling me… he thinks he is my father!”

Fen’Harel’s eyes widened in apparent surprise, and then delight, and then – as he took in Hawen’s shocked expression – amusement. “ _Vhenan,_ perhaps you should have first ensured your father wished me to know.”

She bit her knuckle, suddenly contrite. “ _Ir abelas, papae._ I hope you do not mind if Solas knows?”

Hawen seemed as stunned as she had been. “Virlath, _da’len…_ no, not at all. Is it that… you believe me, then?”

He was not a man much given to physical affection – an introvert, like her – but suddenly she found herself in his arms, and crying on her father’s shoulder as he stroked her hair. When Josephine entered the courtyard soon after, Solas slipped across to talk to her, tactfully engaging her in conversation until she and Hawen were ready.

They did hold the rehearsal after all, though Virla could scarcely concentrate on it, her mind still reeling. No longer an orphan, no longer without history or closest kin… she had a father. A father!

The hectic pace of developments appeared to be affecting Solas too, for he approved the bonding vow wordings and rituals with what she first thought and then declared was indecent haste, until Josephine explained that he had scrutinized them previously, while she was attending to Emalien. Virla stayed quiet after that.

****

They were sitting in Baron Desjardins’ office, snatching a precious quarter of an hour before the formal feast. Merrill and Virla had the armchairs; Hawke sat bolt upright on the chair from behind the desk; and Varric leant against the hearth, leafing through papers from his pocket and tossing each into the fire after he’d read it.

“Where were you all day?” asked Virla, managing by a heroic effort to keep her tone light and not accusatory.

“Some stories should never be told,” said Varric, with a wink. Hawke flushed, but kept his eyes on Merrill.

“We were with Dagna in the Undercroft,” explained Merrill. “Solas gave us the circlet… oh dear. Now it isn’t a secret. I am so sorry, Inquisitor Lavellan! It’s for you, you see, but it needed cleaning. I was sorry for the spider.”

Varric rolled his eyes. “Remind me never to tell you any secrets, Daisy. Except this one. Right. Solas is actually Fen’Harel, the ancient Dalish god. That’s why he could fix your mirror as easily as Dagna works with lyrium.”

“No,” said Merrill, a hand creeping up to her locket. Her eyes searched every face in turn, ending up on Virla’s. “You’re teasing me. That _can’t_ be right! You’re _Dalish._ You can’t let the Dread Wolf take you!”

As seriously as she could, Virla said: “If I don’t, the moon will fall from the sky, and what remains of the Forest of Arlathan will turn to ashes. You liked Solas, Merrill. He mended your eluvian. Also, I need your locket back.”

Varric snorted. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

  



	35. Feasting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The eagle-eyed among you may notice that I have extended this from 36 to 40 chapters, so that I can do full justice to the ending of this story. Virla thought she was nearly there as well, but - as Varric might have reminded her - fate has a nasty habit of pulling the chair out from behind just as you sit down with a full glass of ale.
> 
> This chapter took a while partly because I needed to work out a full seating plan for the feast. I'm more similar to Josephine than I thought!

His room in the mage tower had but one source of light, a window looking north to where the frozen glacier sloped down to form an ice-blue bowl. The window had been here before, but Mason Gatsi’s people must have been asked to move the steps within the tower in order to make best use of the light. This view was new.

Everything was new to him, it seemed: new, and not quite comfortable, like these Dalish Second’s robes he was wearing. Painstakingly created from a pattern Craftsmaster Taniel had supplied, or so Harding had told him when she’d brought the parcel, they were the work of Skyhold’s best seamstresses, leatherworkers and smiths.

Whoever the crafters were, they’d used the most expensive materials to hand, regardless of authenticity or attention to the aesthetic impression the wearer would create. A coded insult? If so, one he would ignore.

The light was dimming. A flick of his hand illuminated the candles, and caused the window to act as a mirror, in which he might inspect himself. The dark blue woollen undershirt contrasted horribly with the persimmon orange dragon webbing of the heavy cowl and overshirt, and with the yellow topaz marquise suspended over it. The combination, underneath the crisscrossed leather straps around his waist and the calf-length, green, embellished robe, made his skin prickle with heat. The dragon bone gorget round his throat was as suffocating as it was gaudy, and the leather calf protectors rubbed his feet when he walked. The halla leather leggings…

Solas forced himself to admit that he rather liked the halla leather leggings, even if they were a shade too tight for modesty. They were soft, and white, and exactly the right length to graze his ankles. Nothing else about this outfit – this room, this situation – reminded him of Arlathan, except their feel and smell.

Still, he was appropriately garbed, and he had suffered far more discomfort for propriety’s sake before.

With a final twitch to the straps, he descended from his room to the battlements, and flew to the balcony of the Great Hall, shifting as he landed. Soon, the bell would call their guests to the feast, but for now the servants were putting the finishing touches to the tables, bringing in meats and jellies, ices and breads and soup tureens.

At the heart of the swarm stood Lady Josephine. She was dressed more elegantly, if not perhaps more diplomatically, in an Orlesian-style gown in her favourite gold and blue, her waist encircled by an embroidered cincher in the same colours. She was leaning over the table of honour, her back to him, trying to adjust the candles so that they would be symmetrically balanced on either side of where the Divine would sit.

Time was when he could scan a room, and calculate to a nicety where to seat each guest for maximum effect.

Even in Elvhenan, when all were elves and mages, such problems could be complex. The Inquisitor’s companions were an eclectic bunch, and with a full Dalish clan as well, Lady Josephine must have faced a challenging task.

From the arrangements he deduced they’d continued to follow Orlesian protocol tonight, with Most Holy in the Andrastian throne at the centre of the table of honour. Unusually, it had been set across the Hall, running from the door that led to the war room to the opposite door leading to the library, with another high-backed chair on each side of the Divine. Two further tables ran lengthwise down the Hall on each side, with four chairs on either side of each, and additional chairs at the end of each table furthest from the table of honour, facing it.

Four nines were thirty-six, and three at the Divine’s table made thirty-nine. Fifteen in the clan – including themselves and the Keeper, and discounting baby Taralen who, if he attended, would not require a separate seat. That left twenty-four seats, or twenty-three if you excluded the Andrastian throne.

He wanted to: its contorted metal flames reflected the living fires within the braziers – a sickening reminder of things he must leave in the past. A twisting nauseous sensation – like a sharp sword sliding through the gut and not the heart – compelled him to look away. Yet looking up meant elves in cages, Keepers high above two wolves… and Xebenkeck, who would return one day, bent on revenge. No matter that Virlath had saved them from Corypheus, from the Blight, from his own plans… the People would forget again, as they’d forgotten before.

Solas’ hands tightened on the balcony, remembering what Hawen had told him after Virlath left with Josephine.

Doubt swirled in him, a dark red vortex of blood and fire. Perhaps he ought to leave and never… _no!_

_I have hurt her enough. I promised. I take my commitments seriously. Besides, it would be futile._

Sweat dripped down his back. If only he hadn’t misjudged the days, she might have been safely bonded to him before Xebenkeck had time to carry out her plan. Yet even if he left this very moment, he could no longer shield her from the pain of seeing her people turn against her, the fear that they would seek to stop the ceremony.

To distract himself from doubt and heat, he contemplated how he would have seated their guests. On their arrival, Skyhold held only the Baron, the Scout, Sera and the Arcanist. The Divine’s party comprised Most Holy herself, the Grand Enchanter and the Arl. Five from Wycome: Hawke and four elves not in Clan Al’var.

Twelve so far. Josephine herself, from far Antiva, then three from Denerim: the Commander, his friend Cole and the Bard; that made sixteen. The Seeker and the Warden, Zephyr-borne; eighteen. Five more from Kirkwall: Master Tethras; Magister Pavus; The Iron Bull; Fenris with his lyrium-branded skin; and Merrill Alerion Sabrae. Finally, three today: Flemeth’s last daughter; Soren Lavellan; and _Fen_ -Hassrath Tallis, his double agent.

That made twenty-six, and fifteen from the clan made forty-one. He counted the seats below again: yes, thirty-nine. That there would be no seat for his friend Archivist Banon was a matter for regret – but the man was of a quiet disposition, and might not even notice the omission. And Keeper Deshanna had not yet returned, as far as he could tell. Perhaps there was an illness, or an apology – from Morrigan, or Merrill.

Not liking to startle those present, Solas walked down to the Hall, and bowed to Lady Josephine. Appreciating the way she suppressed her instinctive flinch at the… vivid colours of his robes, he kept his voice low and polite.

“Lady Montilyet,” he said, “I wondered who was missing from our feast, beside Keeper Deshanna.”

The Antivan woman looked worried, and glanced down at her plan. “Missing? What do you mean?”

He quickly explained his reasoning, and as he mentioned Soren’s name, and the bonding to follow tomorrow between the man and Nissa Al’var, Josephine’s eyes flew wide in consternation. “But no-one told me that!”

She seemed to sway on her feet, and he put an arm around her waist, grasping her forearm lightly, and taking the weight of the heavy writing board with his other hand. “There is time,” he reassured her. “Let me help.”

Lady Josephine shuddered, pulling herself out of his grasp with a determination he had not expected. A dark flush crept up his skin as he belatedly realised the reckless impropriety of his action. Standing as close as he had been, he had been unable to avoid perceiving through the Veil the woman’s suppressed attraction to him.

Embarrassed, he bent his head – and mind – to the writing board she’d left in his hand, its candle burning low.

****

“This is an unusual arrangement,” complained the Grand Enchanter as she stood behind her seat, loud enough for Virla to hear. “I thought that you and I were to be seated with Divine Victoria, Cassandra.”

“That is the plan for tomorrow’s Dalish ceremony,” said Baron Desjardins, bestowing a genial smile first in her direction and then encompassing the whole table with it. As the chatelain’s eyes flickered over towards the top table, she caught Solas, to her left, inclining his cowled head a fraction to the Orlesian nobleman.

“What was that about?” she murmured to him, as they waited, still standing, for Most Holy to arrive.

“There was a last minute alteration to the plan,” he said, equally quietly. “We appear now to be compliant with the rules obtaining in the Temple of Mythal for double bonding ceremonies when Mythal was in attendance.”

Virla’s eyes danced. “I thought that was my domain: subverting Andrastian protocols.”

She’d meant it as a light-hearted joke, but at the mention of the human prophet Solas’ eyes darkened in pain. At that moment the Divine’s procession entered, and the chance to apologise was lost. Hard to always bear in mind the difference in their perspectives: he’d watched Andraste’s story unfold. To her it was a legend, scarcely real. 

Throughout the meal, she brought Leliana and Solas up to speed on recent conversations, and watched the shifting moods of others in the room. On the other side of the Divine, Nissa and Soren were holding a halting conversation, but at least they were taking the opportunity to get to know each other. Cassandra and Cullen were making polite conversation with Arl Teagan. Emalien had begun to relax, with Taralen sleeping in a sling. Fenris and Tallis were speaking of Seheron, and fog warriors. Dorian was adroitly managing a conversation with Morrigan, Harding and Banon on locating ancient sites in the Frostback Basin. Hawen looked tired but content.

Merrill cast occasional shocked glances in their direction, but had been largely distracted by being sat opposite Tallis, The Iron Bull and Sera; and comforted by being sat between Garrett Hawke and Varric. Virla had also watched their table with growing interest as Hawke overcame initial diffidence to make conversation with Josie.

“Did you put Josie with Hawke?” she murmured to Solas, as Leliana interrogated Soren for any recent news.

He’d withdrawn into himself, and took a moment to answer. “Did I put… oh, you mean the seating? Yes.”

Her betrothed fell silent again, and Virla thought of the precious ring strung with the crystal underneath her clothes, its magic pulsing like a tiny rift against her sternum. Trying to determine whether she should consult in private with Solas before they slept, her gaze was suddenly pulled upwards to the balcony. Beyond burning braziers, lit chandelier and drapes, beyond the locked and warded doors, three figures moved.

The servants were clearing away their dishes, and topping up their glasses of wine. Solas was staring at his bowl of berries: unmoving, lost in thought. No-one else was facing the balcony; no-one else would have noticed yet.

“Excuse me,” she said to no-one in particular, and laid a warning hand on Solas’ shoulder as she passed him, pressing through the heavy orange webbing. _Come._ She felt him startle, then become alert. _Good._

On the stairs up to the balcony, she paused, and waited for him to catch up with her. He looked strange in these robes they’d made for him – fire where he was normally ice, sweltering as he ran up the stairs. By silent mutual consent, she let him lead, creeping along beside the darkened wall, out of sight from the guests at the feast.

Solas paused in the corner, his breath hot against her cheek. “One is Deshanna. Who are the other women?”

He bent to allow Virla to speak into his ear. “Keeper Levinia Ghilain – Ameridan’s clan. Keeper Lanaya Sulan,” she said. “Fereldan, supported the Hero in the Fifth Blight. Previous allies of the Inquisition. Lanaya may also be the mage that Cullen has become attracted to; he asked Warden Caronel about her, and Caronel asked me…”

“…and the Commander was reading elven poetry, albeit in translation,” completed Solas. Then he paused. As her eyes adjusted she could see him frown. He gestured at her bodice. “What is pulsing magic under there?”

“A sylvanwood ring,” she said, in a whisper. “One of Xebenkeck’s minions – Bedazzle – had stolen it from Merrill. I persuaded her it ought to be returned to the clan responsible for it.”

His eyes flashed. “Such rings are offensive. Perhaps it would be better not returned!”

This wasn’t a conversation to have now. There were guards posted below the balcony, in earshot of any conversation that they had outside, and their figures would be outlined against the sky, visible from the feasting tables. Ignoring Solas’ intemperate remark, she slipped past him, dissolved the wards and opened the door.

Deshanna gave her a stern look, and, before Virla had said a word, had shifted into an eagle and swooped past her, down to the Hall below, shifting as she landed to stand between Soren and Nissa at the table of honour.

Virla felt the blast of air as Solas followed her, and turned back to find the wings of a hawk and a tawny owl brushing past her face. By the time Virla landed, her own raven wings buffeted by the turbulence caused by the larger birds, the Hall was in chaos. Half the guests were on their feet. Deshanna had a barrier around herself and Soren. Solas was standing beside Nissa, practically growling with rage. Leliana had retreated to the side, flanked by Cassandra and Cullen with their swords out. Lanaya was desperately gesturing to Cullen to stand down.

“Sheathe your weapons!” cried Virla, terrified someone would get hurt. “Deshanna, what has happened?”

“This bonding cannot take place,” said Deshanna, her hand gripping Soren’s shoulder like a talon.

Solas’ eyes blazed with anger from within his orange cowl. “It is an _internal_ matter for the clan.”

Deshanna turned on him. “What would you know of Dalish politics, Fen’Harel? It is Soren’s bonding I speak of.”

The colour drained from Nissa’s face, and Soren swore. “ _Fenedhis,_ Keeper! I do not wish to wait until the next Arlathvhen before I can lay with a woman!”

Virla could see Solas’ temper rapidly disintegrating, disgust and disdain written plainly on his face. Before she could take countermeasures, Hawen stepped through the Fade to stand between Solas and Deshanna.

“Is this a decision of the _hahren’al_ , or yours?” he asked, with a mildness Virla could only admire.

Levinia Ghilain stepped into the place vacated by the Divine, a tall dark woman with Ghilan’nain’s halla horns etched in white across her face. “The _hahren’al_ voted to expel the Inquisitor from the Dalish.”

The world was black and white and clear. Virla noted each angry mutter from her clan; the gasps from Josephine and Merrill. All eyes were on her reaction. She had to respond, with frigid calm: “Only my Keeper can do that.”

“Correct,” snapped Keeper Deshanna. “And so, the _hahren’al_ decided to expel the whole of Clan Al’var.”

“I do not believe the vote was valid, Deshanna,” said Lanaya, speaking for the first time. “Not all of the Keepers were present. And none of those who called the motion had the courage to come here now and face Fen’Harel.”

“As craven as they are ungrateful,” spat Solas, finally losing his temper. “It would serve them right if I truly were the monster that they fear. Do they intend to slander Virlath as my whore, and worship Xebenkeck?”

“If those who oppose us lack the courage to travel to Skyhold, _vhenan,_ ” said Virla, into the shocked silence, “then at least our bonding ceremony may proceed uninterrupted.”

“You are not Dalish,” said Deshanna, her voice shaking. “Hawen cannot bond you. He is no longer a Keeper!”

To almost everyone’s surprise, Joswen of Wycome appeared beside her, the tall elf unstealthing like a rogue in combat. “But was that vote valid? The Inquisitor is like a daughter to you; her people saved our own. I would not abandon my own so lightly. The Dalish abandoned those of us in cities centuries ago. Yet we survive.”

“You do not flourish, though,” said Cullen, who had sheathed his sword. He sounded sad, and old. “For every Wycome, there is a Kirkwall – or at least, there was,” he added, as the Viscount of Kirkwall coughed loudly.

“And for every Kirkwall, a Minrathous or Vyrantium,” said Dorian. Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged his shoulders. “Twenty-seven elves in the room. You were all thinking it! We have to finish what Andraste started!”

“He’s right,” said Cullen, as if the idea had only just occurred to him. “It doesn’t matter if you are Dalish or human, Templar or mage… even Ameridan honoured Andraste! Solas, the elves in your camp…”

Virla had been watching Deshanna. “I do not wish a split within the Dalish,” she said, cutting across Cullen.

“Why not?” cried Solas. “The Dalish only never fought themselves because there was nothing left for them to fight over! They had no ambition, made no plans to capture land or wealth that they might recreate Halamshiral. This vote is an insult! A single woman rose above their marginal existence, and this is how they repay you?”

“When I first woke, after the Conclave, everybody spat at me,” said Virla coldly, before any of the Dalish there could rise to Fen’Harel’s bait. “I am the last of the _elvhen._ I can outlive their hostility. I am not _proud,_ Solas. The solution is clear: we should both leave Clan Al’var. Most Holy can bond us in a purely Andrastian ceremony.”

Belatedly, she cast a glance at the Divine. Leliana looked perturbed, but nodded quickly in reassurance.

Deshanna looked relieved. “If you were willing to do that, _da’len_ , your clan might still remain Dalish.”

Merrill had been following the conversation. “Keeper Hawen, if you need one. I was trained as a First...”

Solas almost screamed with rage, his aura visibly circling with power. Those close to him shrank back, all except Hawen, who stood his ground, his attention focused on her. “The Dalish do not have sufficient numbers! If elves are to survive another aeon, you must find all who wish to follow, and build a homeland far from other races.”

“On Par Vollen, perhaps,” said Morrigan. She began to laugh. The sound was an aggravation to Virla’s senses, but as soon as Virla thought  – _be quiet, Morrigan! –_ the noise abruptly stopped.

Virla remembered Flemeth preventing Morrigan from using magic, and shuddered. Solas glared at them both.

“I do not accept your solution, Virlath,” said Hawen. “I have not found my daughter only to lose her!”

“The Inquisitor is your daughter, Hawen?” asked Levinia Ghilain, her eyes widening. “Oh! I see it now! _That_ is why Elindra Ralaferin is so furious. It ought to have been _her_ daughter here, the one foretold to capture Fen’Harel. They were exactly of an age. Instead, the girl perished when the Frostbacks Temple exploded.”

“Quiet!” shouted Virla, as the murmuring around her – _I didn’t realise he was her **father** … family resemblance_ – threatened to divert her line of thought. “There are _prophecies_ about… about me and Fen’Harel?”

“Many false seers have led the People astray,” said Solas, throwing up his hands. He stepped through the table via the Fade to tower over her. She was sure he’d grown larger in his rage. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“It rarely hurts to listen,” she shot back as coolly as she could, his feral proximity forcing her to lean her head back if she wished to meet his stormy eyes, sparking silver. “Trust is another matter entirely.”

“It hurts to listen if you are hurt by it! How do you think I feel about all of this?”

“As furious as me, but less able to disguise that fact,” said Virla, icy cold. “We need a plan, not an argument! You’re surrounded by _friends,_ Solas. Everyone here is angry on our behalf. Look around. You’re not alone!”

He shook his head, the pain in his eyes a hammer to her heart. “I need to _be_ alone.”

Without another word, he Fade-stepped again, this time to the doors of the rotunda, and slammed the door on them all. Virla swung round, tears glistening in her eyes, and found herself staring into up Banon’s face. The old archivist wore a look of utter determination, such as she had never seen him wear before. “I will ensure messere does not damage the fresco, Your Worship,” he said, and strode down the Hall, soundless on soft-soled shoes.

The Iron Bull ran after him, only to be stopped at the door. “No,” said Cole, closing the door after Banon. His hands stretched out to bar the way. “He might say things to you he would regret. He would not hurt his friend.”

Virla felt a hand on her arm. It was Hawen. “You were right, _da’len._ We are angry for you, not _with_ you.”

There were general nods around the room. “The Inquisition saved our lives,” said Arl Teagan, “just as Lanaya’s clan helped us in Denerim during the Blight. This group demanding your exile ought to follow a proper process, as we did when we called for disbandment in the Exalted Council. The Dalish owe you that at least.”

Lanaya cast him a grateful glance, though she still looked worried. “Hawen, Levinia and I came here following Deshanna to persuade you to contest the ruling. They threatened immediate reprisals on Clan Lavellan if she did not prevent Soren’s bonding to Nissa. If that were delayed a year, it might buy us time to calm things down.”

Hawen reluctantly nodded, with a look of apology to Nissa, who seemed close to tears. As Deshanna also voiced her support for Lanaya’s suggestion, Soren made a noise of frustration, but the threat to his clan prevented him from disagreeing openly. Instead, he sat down next to Nissa, and laid his hand on top of hers in silent gesture.

Beside him, at the table of honour, Leliana had resumed her place, standing in front of the Andrastian throne. She beckoned to Virla to join her. “What would you recommend we do?” she said, as they stood together.

Virla put a hand to her breastbone, feeling the panic settle in beside the magic pulsing there. _I need a plan._

“He will not leave,” said Cole, suddenly beside her. “He knows that it would hurt you, and he can’t.”

“Thank you, Cole,” said Virla. She took a shaky breath. “Let’s sleep. We’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”

  



	36. Pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chess-board of kudos - thank you all for reading, and particularly for your comments. :)

Solas clenched his fists. “Cole,” he said, without looking, “I believe I said I needed to be alone.”

“My apologies, messere,” came the calm response. “I am on my way to the library.”

 _Oh._ In his disordered state of mind, he’d felt out through the Fade, and assumed the compassionate human soul was Cole, and not the kindly Archivist. The mistake did not improve his mood.

He turned to face his friend. The man was walking through the rotunda as steadily as if he hadn’t just witnessed the blazing row between himself and the Inquisitor. “You chose to come this way,” he said, in accusation.

Banon paused in front of the Mythal _sa’vunin_. “Yes,” he said, with a dry chuckle. “Those in the Hall believe you might confide in me. It may help prevent well-meaning fools from coming after you.”

“I said I needed to be alone,” said Solas, suppressing a snarl. He put a hand to his throbbing head. “There is no need for barbarians to kill the fleeing soldier.”

The Archivist smiled gently. “Can a nug kill a wolf? Besides, as an historian, I should have termed it a strategic retreat. No man could think in such an environment.”

He was grateful that the man expressed no more support than that, lest he be tempted to spill further secrets. When he said no more, the Archivist nodded, as if content, and continued to the stairs, and upwards out of sight. His soft-soled shoes made little noise on the treads, and Solas found his breathing come more easily. He pushed the dragon webbing cowl back from his head, and conjured frost, pressing it to his face.

After some minutes he felt the flames of rage grow less intense, and began to feel ashamed of his hasty flight from the scene. Yet there was nothing he could do to change the past, and he knew that if he strode back into the Hall, he’d eviscerate the first unlucky soul who proposed another foolish course of action.

Verbal evisceration, but still… not wise. Thousands of years of dreaming with none but spirits for company… no, he needed sleep. Shifting into a raven, Fen’Harel prepared to fly straight upwards through the open roof.

Halfway up, Banon paused in his perusal of the shelves, and turned around to watch his flight. The man’s face was strangely vulnerable, as if he feared that this was the last time he would see the artist he admired – and had admired, long before that quiet apostate became an ancient elvhen god.

Solas tried his hardest not to read minds, respecting the privacy of each free-willed soul, but sometimes even gods could not escape the prayers of those who meant them. Banon’s pleas were practically audible. Not for himself, but for the Inquisitor who loved the man – _don’t leave her, don’t leave her again, not now…_

The raven fluttered down to land beside a nearby desk, taking care to stay far from the candles burning there, and Banon’s hands gripped tighter on the rail. These people were still unaccustomed to his shapeshifting, he reminded himself. Hopefully, that would change. He transformed back; forced the angles of his face to soften.

“Archivist,” he began. _Ghil-Dirthalen, ar dirth ma sahlin…._ “I appreciate that you did not try to speak with me just now. I was… well. I shall retire to my chamber. But first… I would ask a favour.”

The man looked startled. Unheard echoes floated up from the rotunda. _You don’t need anything. From anyone. You’re known for that._ Memories of Virlath’s voice; bright images – crimson jacket, azure sash, bronze gloves and belt; emerald on pale, pale skin. _I needed **you** , _he thought, as past guilt twisted in his heart again. _Sophiyel._

“What would you ask of me, messere?”

His soft Orlesian accent reminded Solas of his friend’s lyrical elven. But Banon was no replacement for Sophiyel.

“Only to tell the Inquisitor that I will retire to bed. That she need not fear that I shall leave. That I will speak with her tomorrow morning, and that I wish her a peaceful night.”

“I shall certainly pass that message on, messere,” said Banon, relief lighting his face.

Solas nodded curtly – unable to speak gratitude lest he reveal his inner turbulence – and became a raven once again, flying up through the circular opening at the top of the rotunda. One bird among many – the wild ravens steering clear of him on instinct – his keen eyes scanned the moonlit fortress grounds as he circled round to the roof of the mage tower. If the three Dalish Keepers had made it here, had any others followed them?

He had no goal agreed with Virlath. But it would be important to stay watchful.

Many of their guests had already left the Hall – some to the Dalish aravels, some in the direction of the tavern. Morrigan was heading for her room. Unlike Ema, she hadn’t brought her three-week-old baby to the feast. It was a sign of trust in the woman Josephine had found to guard Silvius while he slept, one he was surprised to find himself approving. Morrigan so rarely liked to rely on others, yet… Well. He could understand that.

He checked the griffons. Zephyr was in her favourite spot. Revas was in hers. Dorfassan was… not where he’d been before the feast, and not on any other battlement or tower.

But he couldn’t see the Warden either. Perhaps the man had taken his griffon out to stretch his wings, testing the injured tendon on a longer flight. Yes, that must be it.

Circling higher, he scanned the horizon, earth and sky. No sign of anything unusual – a peace entirely unlike the horrors that had encompassed the land a week ago. Horrors all visited upon it by his actions. The moon in the sky lit every snow-covered peak and icy valley with equal clarity, and he found in his heart an odd forgiveness for the Dalish Keepers who could not accept him, and rage at those who did.

Yet if they fought him, he would win. And so they must be taught to love, and he must love himself.

Fen’Harel landed on the roof of the mage tower. Changing form at the furthest corner, the better to be hidden from view, he cast a ward across the trapdoor to prevent incursions, and lay down on his back, his arms beside him, donning the cowl to protect his head from the cold stone underneath. Silently, he watched the moon. He would always watch the moon from now on, relying on the promise that it held, a hundred steps to revelation.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, letting the cool night air release him, safe above the stone. Memories of aeons sleeping underground – both close and far below the surface, in Solasan and sunken Arlathan, the boundary of the circle and its centre – sank into his mind, grounding and disturbing him. Atop the tower, buried alive, no need to breathe this cool night air. No need to fight, unless it turned out necessary.

Eventually, he felt himself grow sleepy, and forced himself conscious again, conscious of the Dalish Keeper’s robe, the stale dried sweat, the taste of wine and berries in his mouth, the sounds of revelry and ravens.

Dispersing the ward, Solas stiffly climbed down into the tower, intending to wash and stretch and check his precious elvhen armour stood ready polished for tomorrow. There were many things he was willing to do for Virlath and their clan, but he would not wear this set of Dalish robes for their bonding. Descending the stairs, he extricated the key to his room. It had been kept tucked within his belt, doubly-secured by a long piece of silk knotted around the leather. He’d put it in the keyhole before he realised: the door had not been locked. Or…

He felt through the Fade and into the room, and groaned. “I can detect your presence in there, Sera. What part of _I need to be alone_ didn’t you understand?”

“Shit,” came a muffled response. “Promise I wasn’t doing lizards this time.”

A twist of magic and a puff of air, and the door eased open. His armour hung in its habitual place, suspended from the bracing-joist; his bed was neatly made; and Sera sat cross-legged upon the floor, biting her knuckles.

“Have you ever done the same thing twice?” he asked to gain time, taking a tentative step into the room.

“Dunno. Wait. Yeah. Aren’t so many things that you can do with a bow.”

He took another step, fighting the urge to hysterical laughter. The world could be ending, and still Sera would find a way to distract them. “With magic there are infinite possibilities,” he said, casting a flurry of snow at her.

She stuck out her tongue and ate a snowflake. “Well, same with a deck of cards to you. With knobs on.”

“A deck of cards is finite, so any combination of cards is finite,” said Solas, deciding to risk sitting on the bed. “And decks contain no knobs. Only kings and queens and drakes.”

“Must suck to be you,” said Sera. “Always needing to get things right. Is that snowflake gonna melt my insides?”

Nothing in the room seemed to be any different. “No. Why are you here, Sera?”

A smirk touched her lips, and she stopped rubbing her stomach. “To thank you. Didn’t think I’d get chance tomorrow, with Dalish and Divines and shit. Widdle and I are leaving straight after it’s all done. Places.”

“Thank… me? For what?” he asked, his usual patterned phrases disappearing under the young elf’s influence.

It had never struck him so forcefully before, seeing this mortal with Andruil’s soul – or what had once been Andruil’s soul – if memory and insight proved correct. The crazed Void-tainted huntress goddess was no more. The famous Evanuris was no more than a memory. Nothing remained save a hunger to experience, an aptitude for archery… but those were Sera’s now. Incredible that she was not a mage, would never want to _be_ a mage…

Sera snorted. “Where’ve you gone, droopy ears? Mind so big you can lose yourself in it?”

He was suddenly too tired to think of a sarcastic reply, and sighed. “Apparently so.”

“Right,” she said. “So, that spirit you sent to me and Dagna. Less cranky than Abelas. Won the bet, didn’t I?”

His mind was big enough to be quick, or quick enough to prevent his mouth from saying: _what spirit? What bet?_

Instead, he nodded, controlling his reaction, while his mind ticked off the possibilities. “You are welcome.”

“Next time, tell him to skip the details,” said Sera, pushing herself up to a standing position. She bent over and made a crude gesture with her hand behind her bottom. “Didn’t need to know how big your wolfy dick was.”

“I… shall do so,” he said, faintly.

At the door, Sera leant against the doorpost. She glared at him, but her posture was strangely relaxed. Drunk, he assumed. “You better treat her right this time, you hear? No leaving. Let her bang that wolfy dick of yours s’long as she wants.”

Thankfully, she didn’t wait around for an answer, because he couldn’t think of one.

With the door closed, and locked again… and barred, and warded… he began to strip the heavy clothes off.

Once his robe, protectors, necklace and overshirt had all been safely stowed away, he’d begun to peel the woollen undershirt over his head when he heard tapping on the window, like a… beak? He dragged the clammy blue material back down over his head, preferring not to face this new intruder bare-chested. _I **fed** you, Zephyr…_

The first thing he noticed was that it wasn’t Zephyr.

The second thing he noticed was that it wasn’t actually a griffon.

“ _Fenedhis_ ,” he swore. The window had no latch, and in any case it was far too small to let the griffon in. He pressed his head up against the glass, and shouted with his mind: _become a sparrow._

The small bird outside cocked its head on one side and glared indignantly at him. Before it could fly away, he melted a diamond pane of glass, and pulled the bird inside. A ward replaced the pane… for now. He sat the bird on the floor, and waited until it took an elven form again. It did look somewhat like Abelas, with gold eyes rather than the brown it had affected in the Fade, and Mythal’s vallaslin, green-tinted skin, a long white braid.

“What have you done with Warden Caronel’s griffon?” said Solas in elven, pacing around in a circle so that the kneeling spirit would have to keep turning its head to follow the movements. If, indeed, it wanted to.

“I paid someone in Kirkwall to look after it. Someone who knew the person whose…”

“It is forbidden to take the likeness of beings who are alive!” snapped Fen’Harel.

Audacity rolled its eyes. “I changed Zevran’s eyebrows. And the griffon’s talons. Not my fault nobody noticed!”

“Yes,” said Solas, wearily, “but you based it on a living being. Traversing the Veil, you need to maintain yourself.”

“Young spirits are more malleable,” said Audacity, yawning and turning its white braid to a chestnut brown. “That _is_ our nature. To change shape without others telling us what’s right or wrong. _You_ named me Audacity.”

He stopped, and stared the spirit down. “You don’t understand what’s at stake.”

“Your lady told me to look for you in the Fade. I also saw you needed a spirit to win a bet for you, back at Skyhold. I can’t get through the Veil here, so I thought: griffon! So if you _don’t_ want to have your first sexual…”

Solas silenced his lies with a wave of his hand, all the rage that meditation had displaced like heated lava flowing in his mind. “I never told Virlath that.” _Which was another mistake, of course. This world moves too fast._

“The Archer told the Arcanist, and then they told the Writer,” said Audacity in a sing-song voice.

“You watched Master Tethras’ dreams,” said Solas, his voice a chilly whisper. “Does he… dream vividly?”

“He likes to dream of you and the Inquisitor,” said Audacity. “Easy for Xebenkeck to see when she was coming.”

“You should have asked me before you told Sera anything! You assume too much upon yourself.”

“And you want to be king of all of us, controlling what we do, and where we go!”

His voice turned deceptively light; his eyes were fixed on the spirit. “So, you propose to set yourself against me?”

Ice held back fire… for the moment. The challenge hung in the air: _go on, then, see how far you get._

“I am a creature of pride,” said Audacity, stiffly, after a long pause. “It is not in my nature to apologise.”

“Young spirits are more malleable,” said Solas, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. “Your nature would survive it. Still, you will note I asked for no apology. I asked if you proposed to set yourself against me.”

“After what I did to Xebenkeck? My only hope of surviving for long is her belief you would avenge my death.”

Solas gave a short laugh. “That is certainly honest. And… do you believe that?”

Audacity shrugged. “Your principles are all that stand between us and the Void. I would prefer not to visit that place again so soon. _Ir abelas, mirthadra Fen’Harel._ The Archer’s mind is full of holes… I could make her forget?”

“No! I must understand. You had to wait until the battlements were clear. You saw the guards run down the steps, watching people on the balcony. You shifted to this form, got out from the harness. You saw the Archer, running across to the tavern with the Arcanist. How did you know which one was Sera? Varric’s dreams again?”

Audacity grinned. “You ought to watch them yourself. As usual, you see everything. I pulled them into a corner by the tavern and told them what I saw. Table, beautiful naked woman, Dread Wolf taking her from behind.”

Solas narrowed his eyes. “You lied to them.”

“No! That’s what I…”

“You _watched_ us.” He paused, incensed by the risk the spirit had taken. “You could have been corrupted!”

“Hardly,” said the spirit, with a surprisingly deep chuckle. “I’m stronger than you think, old wolf.”

A shiver ran down his spine, as he contemplated the possibility that his intuition had been wrong again, and that he had not yet collected all the fragments of the Evanuris he had been, that the Blight was not…

His voice was cold as he shaped the spirit back into a sparrow, checking that its pride remained untainted. “As insolent as ever, I see. As long as you remain mine, I protect you. Return before Dorfassan is found missing.”

The spirit flown, Solas lay down on the bed, breathing quickly. But Audacity had done some good: he felt himself a general once again. He would find Virlath in the Fade, apologise. They would agree a plan between them.

  



	37. Coherence

Just after midnight, Solas entered Virlath’s tower in the Fade and made his way to her door. Before he knocked, he paused in thought, then conjured up two lengths of black silk cloth, tied one of them around his eyes, and cloaked himself from sight. Raising his unseen hand to the door, he tapped thrice on the wood.

“It is Solas, _vhenan,_ ” he called through the door as she approached. “I have come to apologise, and ensure we are agreed upon our courses of action. Do not be alarmed if you cannot see me when you open the door.”

“Why?” she responded, not yet opening the door. He could feel her reaching out with all her senses to scan his nature closely, as cautious as a halla in a pen. “I mean, why would I not see you?”

“In elvhen tradition, we should not see each other on this day, before the ceremony of bonding. Do the Dalish not remember that?”

“Solas, you are Dalish now,” she said, with a hint of anger in her voice. “If _you_ remember it, the Dalish do.”

“I apologise. You are correct.” She opened the door, and he made the silk cloth still in his hand appear – to her it would seem as if it were floating in midair. “For you to use as well, should you wish to respect an old custom.”

“Come inside,” said Virla, taking the cloth from his hand as he passed her. She shut the door and warded the opening again. Then she paused. “You don’t think we have more important things to discuss?”

“It was not intended for your mouth, _vhenan._ ”

“ _Fenedhis lasa_ , you know I didn’t mean that.” His sly jest seemed to have broken the ice between them, for her tone lost some of its wariness. “How long can you keep it up?”

“Keep it…?”

She giggled, and he felt her hands reach out, finding his chest. Her dress was a single layer of silk; he wrapped his arms around her as she nestled close to him. “The invisibility spell, of course. What else could I have meant?”

Undoubtedly, she could feel his growing arousal against her hip. “The Veil?” he countered, desperately.

“I thought about it, you know,” said Virla. A hand caressed his neck and ears with light touches. “When I wore the Ring of Doubt. I thought about what it would be like to lay with someone you could feel but never see.”

His fingers started to rub circles into the small of her back with his thumbs, feeling the remembered heat of her body even through the coolness of the silk. The temptation to bend her to his will was almost irrestible.

But he had business here. As his fingers stilled, she tightened her arms around him. “How long can you stay?”

“As long as you need me, tonight,” said Solas. “I am sorry that we disagreed in public.”

“But not sorry that we disagreed?” Tension returned, her aura sharp like dragon’s teeth.

He kept his voice calm and gentle. “It would be unusual if we agreed on everything, _‘ma lath._ I am here to listen to your point of view. I would also like to hear what happened after I left the Hall, if you are willing to tell me.”

“Very well,” said Virla. “Lie down on the far side of the bed, and I’ll lie down beside you, and then I’ll put this blindfold on. It does feel strange – disorientating – to have my arms around someone I can’t see.”

“That is the purpose of the blindfold _._ Our minds adjust more easily to that than if we both turn invisible.”

“This is ridiculous, you know,” she said, as they did as she’d suggested. “Surely the elvhen meant we ought not to _meet_ before the ceremony. I have tied the blindfold now, _vhenan_.”

It was simple to dispel the invisibility spell, not that it made any difference. “Originally, it did mean that. Over time the tradition altered. By the time the Veil was raised, it literally meant not seeing your betrothed. Indeed, it had become expected that a couple would lay together on the eve of their ceremony in the dreaming world, as practice for the waking ceremony. They would use silk blindfolds like the ones we have.”

“I see,” she said. Her warmth seeped through his silk shirt and the halla leather of the leggings, as they lay entwined on the bed. “Or, rather, I don’t see, but I understand. I suppose that it was a good way to determine if individuals were compatible, without the risk of pregnancy. I did remember to take the tincture today.”

“Thank you, _vhenan_ ,” he said, gravely. His hand reached up to stroke the fine gossamer strands of her hair. On the way, he had resolved that he must tell her of his meetings with Audacity and Sera, but how best to start?

She shifted in his arms, her unbound body pliant and scented with his favourite flowers. Intoxicating love, how it complicated his perceptions here! She spoke before he was ready. “That tradition you mentioned – ?”

“Only if you would like,” he said, reluctant to express it more strongly in case she felt he expected it of her.

She lifted her head so she could press a kiss upon his cheek, and then another, and another, until his earlobe lay in her mouth, her tongue teasing at it. One leg hooked over both of his, and her hand drifted down his back to caress his ass and thighs. His eyelids fluttered closed underneath the blindfold, thinking of tomorrow, and remembering the countless years he’d spent entirely starved of touch. “I would like that very much,” murmured Virlath, “but perhaps it would be better if we talked first. I am not sure either of us would be coherent after.”

His heartbeat was racing as she drew back, leaving only a single, warm hand clasped tightly in his own. From her aura, she was just as aroused as he was. “I am quite certain I would not be. What happened after I left the Hall?”

“Keeper Lanaya persuaded Hawen and Deshanna that Soren and Nissa’s ceremony should be delayed a year, to give time for a diplomatic resolution. Not cancelled, simply postponed. Hawen will not hear of me leaving the Dalish. He said I could not prevent him continuing to consider me as his First, and will contest the ruling.”

“As determined as his daughter,” said Solas. “I am glad he told you about that, before tonight.”

“Did you know he was my father?”

“There were certain similarities in your appearance, in your nature... I first suspected you might be related, when I received the reports from my agents that he had asked for you to be his First. Without any proof, or anything more than conjectures on my part, I had decided it was best not to broach the subject yet.”

“But you might have, in the future?”

“Perhaps. In any case, it is now irrelevant. Have you decided to remain with your clan?”

“I had thought offering to leave would prevent a split within the Dalish, but since my father is determined to defend us, there seems little point in making the sacrifice. Besides, it would leave Clan Al’var more vulnerable.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Solas. “And why should you change our plans because uninformed onlookers have become prejudiced due to hearsay and corrupted legends?”

“I thought you wished to listen to my views,” said Virla, but she sounded amused. “I don’t know how you can hold such different memories of yourself inside your own head either. I assume it is the influence of the Fade.”

“Nature is not black or white, but grey. It is not the truth of the Keepers’ views of me that I question, but their right to judge me – revile or worship me – based on what they think they know. They should doubt their truths.”

“If Dorian had his way, you would be worshipped as the Maker. He would have us act out Exaltations 1:13. _As the Maker walked the land with Andraste at his right hand. And they reached the gates of Minrathous…_ ”

Solas sighed. “You are not Andraste.”

“Then why do devout Andrastians see me as her in the Fade? _You_ said I was the heart of human faith.”

“They have no other frame of reference for a spirit as powerful as yours. Yet Kordillus Drakon’s Canticle…”

He trailed off, and Virla spoke into the silence. “I heard that he rewrote it several times. Indeed I’ve seen two versions in Val Royeaux: one is locked up with the Orlesian imperial crown jewels; and the final draft is secured in a vault in the Grand Cathedral. Both in Ciriane. What do you know of it, beyond what I might have read?”

“Spirits sent by the Falon’Din who slept beneath the earth spoke to Drakon. His verses were attempts to make sense of what they showed him. Resist the urge to see them as immutable: Drakon’s perceptions were shaped by his belief that Andraste had appeared to him in a dream when he was a child.”

Virla’s thumb stroked the back of his hand, anchoring him to the present era. “And had she? What did happen to Andraste when she died?”

No part of him wanted to remember Andraste’s death, particularly not on this day sacred to marriage. Yet he could hardly rebuke his lover for her desire to question everything; it was her nature, her purpose.

“Her soul was purified to faith by flame within the waking world,” he said, after a moment for thought. “The spirit of faith that had been hers sank through the rock to Falon’Din, not needing to traverse the Veil. Despite the language of ascension often used, the City lay at that time in the abyss. Shaper Valta is her true inheritor.”

“Yes, you told me that. When the City fell, the Fade inverted gravity – what appeared to be in the Fade’s sky actually lay deep below the ground. And Valta became anchored to Andraste’s soul, just as I have Mythal’s. That is why she could do magic, even before the Silver City rose. But could Andraste have truly appeared to Drakon?”

“Did we meet Divine Justinia when we fell into the abyss, or a memory of her, preserved by spirits? Regardless of its nature, the effect of that being’s actions on those present – and how they are perceived in memory – will ultimately matter more. Thus, Drakon might have met Andraste… because Andraste is more than a single life.”

The sermon earned him a dry response. “Red Jenny takes that point of view more literally.”

He chuckled. “Yes. In any case, Dorian will not reveal his hand tomorrow. He knows not to inflame matters.”

“Speaking of inflammatory things… The sylvanwood ring I mentioned earlier is not simply a Keeper’s ring,” said Virla. She conjured up a representation on her finger for him to feel the nature of the magic running through it. “Made in the Towers Age by Tanaleth of Halamshiral, it can call to the other Keepers’ rings.”

“I have heard of such a ring,” said Fen’Harel. Then it clicked. “Ah! This is how Xebenkeck duped them?”

He listened as she explained how she had found it, and how Hawen knew what it was but not who had it now, and how Merrill, Varric and Hawke knew that she had it, in order to return it to its rightful owner, but nothing of what it truly was. From there, they moved on to discuss Cullen and Lanaya, Deshanna and Joswen, Bull and Dorian – and the difficulties of forging a new world from the struggles and conflicts of the present time.

“Are elves and humans so different, when you set aside all history and culture? A pair of pointed ears, and larger eyes that can see colours in the Crossroads… are those worth segregation? If only half of the children born to human-elf pairings could be elves, that question ought never to arise. Is there any way to change those Rules?”

“I know of none. Yet you are wise to ask that, just as you were wise to be cautious in admitting me tonight. The peoples of this age have lost much of their ability to discern what lies beneath a man’s façade. But not you.”

They had drifted back into each other’s arms, and Virlath shook her head against his chest, seeking to deny the compliment just as she accepted the truth of what he said. “Anyone would be cautious if they’d lived my life.”

“Or mine,” he said. “What Drakon put in place has collapsed – the Circles, the Templars, the primacy of human women in the Chantry. Tevinter cannot stand against Par Vollen on its own, and the South is wracked by change. A time for turmoil, revolution. Imagine a successful attempt on Divine Victoria’s life – Madame de Fer anointed in her place – and everything you’ve won for elves turned over in a decade. The Dalish need a homeland.”

“You said one _far from other races_. But, with the eluvians, it need not mean full isolation. What about Seheron?”

“To hold it, we would need a navy. I was thinking of a smaller island first. What do you know of Estwatch?”

“A strategic naval base… south-east of Wycome… not under any jurisdiction, though Marcher states desire it. Held, if you can call it held, by the Raiders of the Waking Sea, the Felicisima Armada. Smugglers and pirates.”

“I thought that we might work upon their fears of the Qunari… and of each other. Some are already my agents.”

She laughed. “Now you sound more like the Dalish remember Fen’Harel, rather than Andraste’s Maker. We will need the Divine’s support – and Josephine – to present this as a service to the South, and not a threat.”

“A true soldier fights for the peace he desires. The Qunari held Estwatch for a quarter of the Storm Age, using it to raid the cities on the Waking Sea. Wycome, Hercinia, Ostwick, Denerim, Kirkwall, Jader, as far as Cumberland and Val Royeaux. It would be a service to them all if it were known to be in safe hands, and defended well.”

“Indeed. Ferelden and Orlais would presumably also be relieved that all your elves are not indefinitely here at Skyhold. The elves themselves would be safer from pursuit by ex-masters. The dwarves… have other concerns. Antivan and Orlesian merchants would be happier if the pirates were focused elsewhere. The pirates…”

“I will give them purpose. And, if necessary… treasure.”

He’d conjured up a chain around his neck, of diamonds and sapphires, and brought her hand up to feel it, where his silk shirt opened at the neck. “Yes…” she said, her thumb running over the cold stones. “Yes. If necessary.”

“In the mean time, keep the presence of the Ring of Tanaleth a secret. I suggest we seek to duplicate it, and return the original to Keeper Eliel in a way that does not lead back to us. Thus, we keep our options open.”

“Isn’t that… cheating?” She sounded dubious, and even more so about that than about the conjured treasure.

“Not if I invoke _vir sulevanan._ That is the entitlement of the Dalish to an item for a necessary errand, is it not?”

“You would need to request it from Keeper… my father,” she prevaricated, her fingers curling in around his chain. He put his own hand on top of hers, and ran his finger over the carvings.

“No, I need to request it from you. It is currently in your possession. You ought to question my reasons.”

She snorted. “This from the man who said he wanted to learn about the Dalish from me. Very well. Why?”

“The Dalish must defend themselves from slavery to the Qun. A copy will assist us to communicate, save lives.”

“But why the secrecy?”

“The Qunari have spies in every corner. _Someone_ attended the last Arlathvhen as Keeper Marethari Sabrae, the woman whose clan thought that she was dead. Yet… who saw other members of her clan? The imposter was a viddathari, made up to look like the woman herself, with careful instruction from other Dalish converts.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she became my agent also. Because we had her at our feast tonight.”

“Tallis?!”

“Indeed. I cannot be certain that she will not still revert to the Qun. My outburst was not entirely accidental. I would like the Qunari to think that I would wish to retreat from the world, rather than engage with it. They must believe that Estwatch is the Chantry’s choice, not ours. We ought not to seem too eager to embrace it.”

Her heart was beating fast enough that he could feel it. “ _Ar lasa mala sulevanan_ ,” she breathed. “Let’s do it.”

It seemed she wasn’t only speaking about the ring, because her hand pressed into his skin, her thumb caressing the sensitive skin at his neck. “Yes,” he responded, and added a string of elven phrases describing the shape and texture of his desires, and requesting her to tell him exactly what she wanted him to do to satisfy her own.

But they had talked too long, and too contentedly, for as she sank blindly on to her knees beside the bed, her mouth parted to give him the _fenedhis lasa_ he had craved for days and months, his magic a throbbing pulse within her edhas _,_ and words of praise and benediction falling from his mouth… he heard someone knocking at his door. He tried to ignore it, focusing on the hot rhythmic movements of her tongue, his guardian of ecstasy _._

The knocks persisted nonetheless, and with a muttered – _ir abelas, vhenan, ar then –_ and his edhis as hard as dragonbone, leaking from its tip – he woke. Summerday, 8154FA, and he would break his vow of chastity at last.

 


	38. Incoherence

Strange and familiar to be back here, in her own Inquisitor’s room, with the Divine formally handing back the keys, and chests of her own clothing waiting on the floor, to be unpacked by her staff between the ceremonies.

Virla fought back her nerves: she had to shake the dreams from her mind, and be alert for treachery. “It was kind of you to allow me to get ready here,” she said, as Most Holy stepped in from the balcony.

Leliana paused, and returned her smile, her eyes a soft blue under the harsh white headdress. “Mercy is not always a weakness. And you were wise to let me stay here. We both know you need my public support for what you must achieve, and the Grand Clerics will only permit that if you honour my position. Read Genitivi’s Tales.”

“Inquisitor, you must hurry,” said Josephine, as the door closed behind Divine Victoria and her retinue. “There is only an hour until the ceremony, and we must get you dressed.”

Virla nodded absently, still staring at the bookshelves. Yes – there it was, _Tales of the Destruction of Thedas,_ just where she had left it, its red leather cover neatly filed with other appropriate Chantry-approved titles. “One moment, Josie,” she said, and crossed the room to filch the tome off the shelves. Inside, a small note in a cipher she could translate without quill and parchment, on paper that would burn leaving only the finest ash.

_She wields the broken sword, and separates true kings from tyrants. Of what do I speak?_

Tossing the note in the fire, to destroy the cipher rather than the message’s contents, she turned her attention to Josephine. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. I can’t believe how quickly everything was arranged.”

“It has certainly been… exciting, Your Worship,” said Josephine, unlatching the top chest and pulling out her bridal garments. “I hope that our arrangements for today will all proceed as planned. May I ask…?”

The Antivan’s hazel eyes had glanced at the fire. “A note from Leliana as a friend,” said Virla. “A reminder of a gauntlet in a temple now destroyed; a riddle from Tevinter. Mercy. Trust. Humility. Respect.”

****

Virla couldn’t tell if respect still stood in Most Holy’s eyes as she and Solas stood under the ancient arch, their hands bound tightly together with strips of halla leather – or if her old spymaster was scanning the ranks of onlookers as keenly as she’d watched Orlesians at the Winter Palace. Was Cassandra watching them with all the ardour of a closet romantic, or did she have her hand upon her pommel, ready to draw and slay whoever first drew a knife? Was Vivienne hiding boredom under her iron carapace, or about to launch her own crusade to be Divine, and thrust her spirit sword into Leliana’s heart? They were all behind her, and she couldn’t turn.

Time was when she would have walked a continent – mountain, forest, Deep Roads, desert – to catch a glimpse of Solas. But now, hyper-alert, she barely saw her lover. Her eyes darted nervously from side to side, to anywhere and anything she could see without his body in the way. Too many birds. Too many strangers. All she could think of was getting somewhere safe, somewhere there weren’t a hundred people watching. Solas’ aura pulsed a calming note, strong and deep and deliberate, and she knew he felt her nerves at shrieking pitch.

_I’m marrying the Dread Wolf. I’m marrying the Dread Wolf. They’re going to kill me. They’re **all** going to kill me._

Her hands were bound to his, hot and damp in his cool ones. Keeper Hawen walked around a wide circle around them, trailing a path of water from an old stone jar. He finished the first circle, _assan_ , and Virla breathed another sigh of relief. She was still alive. Leliana was still alive. Solas was still alive; so was her father. No ravens had turned to furious Keepers; no dragons had carried her off; no poisoned Qunari darts – or bleeding karashoks – had made their way into the garden; no enraged Tevinter magister had committed suicide by fireball.

A pulse from Solas’ aura, so subtle that she might not have felt it had her senses not been so receptive, tipped her head up towards him. _Feel through the Veil, don’t look with your eyes,_ whispered his voice in her mind.

Blinking at the gentleness in his eyes – twin pools of placid blue, so far from the ferocious red or incandescent silver-black of her nightmares – she drew her focus inward and then through the Veil. This close to him, their auras linked, it was possible to _see_ all round her, as if she floated with him, disembodied, at the heart of time and space… or as if she were a dragon once again, both sleeping and awake. Faded on static, folded wings, she fell like a stone, drawn to the heart of iron and ice that lay at the foundations of her fortress.

Cool hands pulled her back, aligning her perspective with Fen’Harel’s view. Flickering colours marked off the souls eerily from the rest: strands of light that waxed and waned. Some of those present had a purity of purpose that made them easy to distinguish: Cole, Cassandra – and, to her surprise, Sera. Others defied neat categorisation, with shifting threads of amber, indigo and russet entangling where their minds and bodies were.

 _Ma serannas. The perception is more accurate with our auras joined,_ said Solas’ voice beside her. _I see that it bewilders you. Later, I will teach you to interpret it. For now, be reassured: if anybody threatened us, I’d know._

His words were more than simple comfort – they were a command. She felt her fear and paranoia drawn away, as easily as she might conjure fire for warmth on a cold night. And, as she closed her eyes to world and Fade, and breathed without constraint, she heard Hawen’s voice declaim three circles done, _assan, borassan, adahlen._

The Keeper clasped their hands in his, and the physical realm returned in force.

Virla’s eyes flew open. Her spirit calmed, she saw this Summerday anew: the brightness of the cloudless azure sky above; the vermilion and emerald colours of the arboris climbing up the cloister walls; her white silk dress with delicate lilac, silver and green embroidery more honest than the rich red velvet worn in Xebenkeck’s realm. Scents of embrium, amrita veil and dragonthorn. Ravens cawing, Solas’ breathing; the cool strength of his hands.

Pride invigorated her. Fen’Harel was but a title after all, their Dalish legends only stories branched like twisted trees… and she was fruit of all their People’s long endeavours, whether they’d accept that truth or not. Daring to look up again, she saw each hair on the wolf’s pelt flaunted over his gilded armour; every engraved detail in the silver lame worn across his chest; the depth of the cleft in his chin; the fullness of his lips; random patterns in the freckles dusting his cheekbones; the straightness of his eyebrows; the curve of the scar on his forehead. She knew his height and strength, their physical proximity like dreams made real. She did not need to feel into the Veil to plumb the depths of his subdued desire – it sang to her like blood and arcane fire, like something _meant._

“ _Sylaise, enaste mala aravel_ ,” said Hawen.

As it would be unthinkable to all the other Dalish present that Sylaise’s name be absent from their vows, Solas had negotiated, with Josephine’s unwitting help, that this part would best be carried by the Keeper. For him the Evanuris’ name had only positive associations, and no unhelpful ambiguity.

Her father nodded his head to her, and she swallowed, knowing that she had to speak as clearly as she could, that all might hear. Thankfully the vows were short. “ _Solas Al’var, mirthadra Fen’Harel_ ,” she said, waiting for her voice to echo back from the stones as they had practised. “ _Ara las mir lath’bellanaris._ ”

They had agreed in private to make no public reference to Mythal, dragons or _adahl’sulahn,_ yet in the formal Dalish wording the commitment to wed for all eternity was there, legacy of the elves’ old immortality. She felt Solas come back briefly from the Fade, enough to tighten his hands around her own, incline his head, in full and painful knowledge of the length that this bond might endure, the fight against corruption and temptation.

“ _Virlath Lavellan Al’var_ ,” said Solas, using the formal Dalish ordering of her name: “ _Ara las mir lath’bellanaris._ ”

His hands were cold around her own, and this time she was stronger, smiling up at him in love and adoration as Hawen unwound the wrappings from their hands, pronouncing the ritual words of blessing: _Mala sulahn’nehn nadas_. The crowd cheered as she stood on tiptoes and let Solas honour her with a kiss. It was a courteous and formal brush of the lips, as serious and restrained as any older suitor married to a woman decades younger.

Her heart hammered suddenly, catching the gleam of wonder in his eyes – and gratitude.

It was quickly gone, hidden under pageantry, but she was shaking, now, giddy with relief and love, and so was he, although she felt he hid it better. Heads and hands held high, they turned around, side by side, to face those present and receive their blessing – a final, formal, silent dance, before they departed the garden, hand in hand.

Guests’ letters of invitation would send them all to different locations now, to canapes and roasts, to rituals in the clan and in the Chantry; and all made tactful references to elvhen customs, as carefully unspecified as the Dalish vows had been thoughtfully translated into Common. Hawen had retrieved his dulcian and was playing them out at a steady, almost martial, tempo. _Marital, martial,_ thought Virla, _it’s only one letter different._

Skyhold’s most senior guards opened the doors into the Hall, and left them there, alone. The massive great doors were closed and warded, and its dark and cool expanse was refuge from the sunlit garden. Solas’ striding sabatonned footsteps echoed on and off the stone. Her own feet were silent, tripping, bound and hidden, underneath her dress. Still holding her hand, Solas eased open the door to Desjardins’ office, and then the two doors after that. As each door closed, the noises of the crowd and music lessened, and when her husband…

_My husband. Solas is my husband. I’m his wife. Fen’Harel’s bride. Ma lath’bellanaris. And no-one’s dead!_

The room had been hung with gold and purple draperies – selected, she guessed, to match their attire. Flowers stood in bowls of water on the table, the headier herbal scents – royal elfroot, laurel, crystal grace, dawn lotus – complemented by the sweetness of the roses and the daisies they were mixed with. Veilfire braziers stood in readiness, and Virla freed her hands to light them before she looked back to her husband. Lover. Bondmate.

His hands were visibly trembling as he tried to ward the war room door and walls for silence, needing three attempts before the door was shielded to his satisfaction. For the sake of his pride she looked away as he progressed around the room, finding a capacious war-chest underneath the centre of the great old oaken war table.

Kneeling on the ground before it, Virla drew the key out from a chain concealed within her garments. Josephine had discreetly packed into this chest a selection of items they might want. Opening it, she took inventory: a stoppered jug of water; a bale of cotton towels, maroon and soft and thick; clean underclothes; two comfortable bedrolls; a selection of miniature bottles – mead and brandy, White Shear, Sun-Blonde Vint…

Virla ignored the alcohol, and lifted a bedroll from the chest, stowing it under her arm. As she stood up with it, she felt Solas drawing near, and turned around to face him, curious to see his expression. Something of doubt and wonder in it reminded her of their first Fade conversation: _right then,_ _I felt the whole world change._

“Thank you for your help out there just now,” she said, wondering if she ought to kiss him first to ground him in this physical reality, or whether he would make that step himself. He was not running away, at least.

A slight flush covered his cheeks. “You are welcome. But I must tell you, _‘ma lath,_ there is no need for us to lay together now to discharge my debt of honour. Audacity watched us while we were in this room in the Fade, with Xebenkeck. He spoke to Sera. She visited me to thank me for enabling her to win her bet with Dagna.”

“I see,” said Virla, dropping her gaze to the dense fur of the wolf pelt. She laid the bedroll down upon the table behind her. It was not, she thought, that he did not want to. Tentatively, she ran her fingers up through his fur, from belt to shoulder, and then down again. So soft. “But it seems a shame to waste these preparations?”

He laid his own hand on hers, crushing it against the pelt. “Yes.”

And with that simple acknowledgement, his façade of serenity vanished. He pressed himself against her – his armour hard and unyielding – whispering endearments, pressing passionate kisses on her lips and neck. The man was like a raging flame, burning her away; a descending ceiling of stone; an implacable force that picked her up and sat her down upon the edge of the table, firm hands around her waist. Through the fabric she could feel his aura burning, chaotic. For a moment he stopped, to murmur: “Are you willing, _vhenan_ , will you let me…?”

“I waited four years for you…” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I cannot wait another four minutes.”

“I have waited ten thousand years for you,” said Solas, his eyes darkening further. He began to slide his hands up her calves, letting the silk ride up on his forearms. “Lean back, _emma lath_. I wish to see…”

Virla swallowed, leaning backwards first on her hands, and then at a look from him, her elbows. He pushed her knees further apart with his hands, and tossed her skirts over his head so she couldn’t see what he was doing. She could feel it, though: his warm hands gliding up until they reached the lacy underwear patterned on a style from Val Royeaux, gifted by Madame de Fer; the magic from his aura pulsing into her already, through the lace.

He was right, they had little time to disrobe completely, and somehow the thought of doing this, while wearing these exquisite garments, made it even more thrilling. His thumbs had drifted upwards, rubbing gently at her clit, with tiny pulses of frost, and she murmured her appreciation, hoping he could hear it through her skirts.

Then, without warning, he drew a sharp line of ice downwards, pinched the lace on both sides with his fingers, and ripped the fabric right between her legs, a long thin slit. She gasped at his audacity, and sighed with joy as he lapped at her with his tongue, with his tongue and magic and fingers, rhythmic and seductive.

It lasted a minute, or an hour, his hands curving round beneath her ass to lift it off the table, sucking her heat through the silk and pushing his muzzle up against her through the gap torn in the lace, as hungry as a wolf to eat her. She abandoned all pretence at control of her lower body, and let him cant her as he wished, feeling the pressure on her elbows as they took the weight of her chest and head, and encouraging him… _more… more!_

Then he lowered her down, and flung the skirts back on her thighs, emerging with a boyish grin at variance with the everite lust that glittered at the back of his eyes. No magical glow this, but pure mortal desire.

Her body was hungry for him. “I would like to pleasure you as well, _‘ma lath’bellanaris_ ,” said Virla, sitting up.

She looked down pointedly to the tip of the pelt, and he tried to unloop the belt to free the fur from where it had been secured. His hands were shaking, making it difficult, and Virla slipped off the table, anxious to assist.

Solas caught her wrists, and drew her hands to where she could open the latch of the belt and lift the fur away. Then, as she set it on top of the still-furled bedroll behind them, magic pulsed from his fingertips to dissolve the seams of the gilded cuisses and greaves that encircled his thighs and calves. _Ah… that’s how it works._

Underneath, he wore silk leggings, a light forest green. The colour matched the embroidery on her dress, and while she was admiring that, he took her hands again, to let her feel him through the fabric as he struggled with the pearly buttons at his waist. It was the first time he had let her – the first time he had let anyone? – do this, if she did not count that morning in Aratishan when he was sundered from himself, and could not see.

He had shown her his strength. Now he was letting her see his vulnerability, the last reserve of desperate pride.

“Sweet talker,” she whispered, as he finally undid the last pearl, amused he was taking such inordinate care not to rip the silk, with his lips still glistening wet from where they’d drunk among torn lace. She sank to her knees, remembering their interrupted morning, and slid the cloth down far enough for her to hold his flesh in her hand, marvelling at its warmth and stiffness, and lave her tongue along its tip, as gently as she could: a promise.

“ _Ma serannas_ , _vhenan,_ ” he said, quietly. “But I should like… the other thing.”

He held a hand down to her to help her raise herself up, and she stood on tiptoes to brush her lips against his, too much in love to fear. His hands slipped round to the small of her back, as he parted her lips with his tongue, pushed with magic through her clothes and lace, a pulse that dove inside her, throbbing, questing, and she cursed her silken skirts that separated them. “In the Fade, I could… _ah!_ … imagine away my clothes!”

A ravening dark flickered across his face, like an altar eating veilfire magic. Yet his voice grew thinner, lighter. “My wife, _‘ma vir lath,_ is small and delicate, like gossamer. Will you let me lift you up on the table? On forearms and knees, _vhenan_ , if you are still willing. If you would be so kind. I will… need to lift your skirts up to…”

His vocabulary had no easy words for this, or if it did he was too constrained to use them now without restraint. Holding something back: conscious of millennia of celibacy; fearful of his own desirability; or wondering if, at last, the world was ready. Or terrified of how ridiculously young she was, at twenty-three years old.

She nodded, acutely aware of the long rip between her legs as she arranged herself, skirts thrown forward over her back and head, barely able to see. But she could feel him… standing close behind her. “Ready, _vhenan._ ”

“ _Ar lath, ‘ma Virlath_ ,” he whispered, easing himself inside her, painfully slowly at first, then, as she continued to encourage him, with body and with voice, thrusting inwards and withdrawing slightly in a steady rhythm, hilting himself more deeply with each push. His hands were firmly clamped around her hips, holding her in place, and Virla cried out in pleasure to feel him filling her at last, to know that she had got the Dread Wolf snared.

And then he began to speak.

****

The words were falling from his mouth, an ancient elven litany, though the subject was entirely profane. Once, as he well knew, it had been sacred, and he the priest that stood at its still centre.

A hymn to the beauty of consummated love, accompanied by a bell.

“Solas,” he imagined Virlath saying. “Why can I hear a bell ringing?”

Some day he would tell her what it meant, some day in the Fade when she could hear it too. The ritual had been corrupted, slowly, by the long passage of time, but for some hundred years it had been perfect.

It happened once a year, on Summerday. Eight willing couples – one man, one woman, newly married, in love – arranged in regular pattern round the lower gallery; positioned just as he was now with Virlath, their heads facing away from him to face the niches in the walls, between the marble columns; their bodies and their faces veiled so that nobody knew their names or shapes. There were strict instructions not to call out names, even in the heat of passion; and to assist, a spell of muffling was cast. No other magic was allowed but his.

The bell tolled once, struck by his hand, and each male thrust in and out of the corresponding female.

The great bell hung at the centre of the sun; and there he stood, a staff in poised in his hand like a conductor.

Eight of them, in perfect synchronicity, commanded by the bell, repeating on the accents of the hymn.

Soft music played as well, but all that he had ever heard were gasps, and tremors in the Veil. No movement was allowed, except when the bell was struck, which at the start was slow and ponderous and long, and by the end was frantic, frequent – like his heart now – pealing/thrusting every second, for a hundred blissful seconds.

And with the final chime, he had another duty: to snake out tendrils of magic, to nipples, anus, tips of edhis and edhas; to backs of necks and soft flesh of the feet; and with a shuddering scream command them all to come.

He did this now, including as a matter of strict ritual himself, and found that he was sinking to his knees, collapsing, diamond pooling across the floor beneath him, shattered by the force of his own spell.

****

Virla gasped and felt him fall away, the beautiful, erotic, rhythmic words he’d spoken leading up inexorably to that final tsunami of magic, so intense she couldn’t even bear to think about it. He’d shouted the last _garas_ so loudly – a man’s cry not a wolf’s – that she was convinced it must have penetrated even through the wards.

She lay for a minute, trembling, breathlessly aroused, transfixed on the ancient oaken table, her body quivering from aftershocks, and aftershocks of those. It was as if he’d had eight hands, or lips, to touch each of her most sensitive and private parts at once, simultaneously the most shocking and most tender thing he’d ever done to her… with her. He looked dazed as well, as if the wave of magic had rebounded, striking him between the eyes.

And then he smiled: a shaky smile, but real… and, shining, smiling back, she slid down to be cradled in his arms.

  



	39. Thrones

They’d held each other for some minutes, sitting on a perfect circle of cool diamond, her head cradled back against his armoured chest, his cheek resting on her head, still breathing hard. Nothing had needed to be said at first, their auras singing in ecstatic harmony. So very clear that this was not the Fade, that this was real. Virla fancied she could hear the old Veil ringing like a bell with sonorous joy, the ancient castle happy for its mistress.

Then Solas murmured, his voice soft against her ear: “Thank you for changing my world, _vhenan._ ”

With shining eyes, she nodded. “And you, mine. Was that some kind of spell that you were speaking?”

“An ancient ritual that I have seen,” he said. He leant across to pull a towel from the chest, laying it across his legs for modesty. “Perhaps I might speak more of it later? We must compose ourselves again for guests.”

He moved to cleanse himself and dress again, and she stayed sitting, deliriously happy, her body aching in the sweetest way possible, magic smouldering along her skin in an endless symphony of love. Once Solas had his armour on again, even the pelt, he turned to kneel in front of her, inspecting her with tender fondness.

“Your cheeks are infused with so beautiful a pink, my heart, that the nature of what we have done here will be apparent even to the dullest onlooker.” He peered down at the diamond flooring. “As are mine, it seems.”

Virla put her hand up to her cheek, then, to cover her confusion, ran her hand across the floor. “This is… real.”

Solas had started rummaging in the chest, but paused to level a worried frown at her, before he realised: “Oh! You mean the floor. Yes, it is. I should have thought to ask Lady Montilyet for powder, but a spell will have to serve.”

Bringing his hands up to his face, illuminated with a clear blue light, he bathed his cheeks until they had resumed their habitual paleness, then turned, still kneeling, and repeated the enchantment on her face. It felt like snowflakes dancing on her skin, a cold relief from the white-hot ecstasy he’d inflicted on her body.

Yet still she blushed inside, and underneath the spell, and shook her head when he held out his hand for her.

“Would it… shall I hold your dress up… and a towel?” he said, correctly divining her reluctance to stand.

“ _Ma serannas_ ,” said Virla, taking the towel and clean silk knickers he passed, appreciating the politely bland look on his face. He gathered her dress with meticulous care in his hands as she sat, then, looking steadfastly over her head at the wall, stood up with her. Her thighs were sticky with his seed, and sweat. She slipped the ruined lace down, noting the tiny traces of blood and frost along the rip, and did the best she could with the towel.

Placing the lace on the table, she swapped it for the white silk: clean, modest and dry, and prettier than the Dalish wrappings she was used to wearing. Her body was still shaking with relief and pleasure, her legs weak.

“Thank you for holding my dress,” she said, clinging to polite formality as he let the fabric fall down to her feet.

His eyes focused on her again. “You are so beautiful,” he said, and pressed a kiss on her lips: soft, and gentle.

Had he forgot, those words hurt? She clung to his arms. “ _Ar lath, ‘ma vhenan._ You… won’t leave me, will you?”

“No,” he said. “I will not leave you. I have promised you my love forever. I take my commitments seriously.” Virla smiled weakly and hid her face on his shoulder, the wolf’s pelt soft, its scent a wild, familiar fragrance. His arms slipped round her, careful not to crush her against the gilded metal. “My love. Please, _vhenan._ Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” she said, though in truth she did feel close to tears, and her shoulders trembled.

“Hmm.” She wriggled free, showing him her unstained face, and he nodded gravely. Then he noticed the marks on the abandoned lace and a look of pain crossed his face. “I hurt you. I am sorry. I was trying to be careful.”

“You mean the blood?” she asked, and he nodded, sombre. “It is a very little thing. I did not notice it.”

He raised an eyebrow, but made no further comment, and knelt instead to enfold the delicate fabric in a towel, shaking his head slightly. “I should be able to mend these, if you wish. Or would you rather I burn them?”

“It seems… a shame to burn them. Josephine said she would have the locked chest carried to our room.”

“ _Our_ room,” said her bondmate, echoing the words in wonder. “I find I cannot wait to share it with you.”

The words were so sweet she was momentarily afraid that this was another dream. Her mind felt fogged, as if she were drunk; she’d only just realised why his tongue had tasted slightly tart, like lemon or honey. Thoughts of herself and him, soft skin under real quilts, his muscled body taut against her own… “I want you again already.”

It had been a whisper, but a heartfelt one, and his shoulders relaxed as he placed the towels in the chest, then stood to face her, his gaze a warm blue caress. “As do I, _vhenan._ For once, I may not wish to seek the Fade.”

Virla smiled, tightening her hands in his – when had he taken them again? His comment needed no reply, only acceptance. He did not seem to mind her silence, but gently drew her hands up, kissing each knuckle in turn.

With a final squeeze of her hands, he blinked and seemed to come back to the moment, looking over her shoulder. “We must pack the bedroll.” Then his tone sharpened: “What is that, lodged between the folds?”

Without waiting for her to reply, he conjured a cloth in his hand, and pulled the object out of the folds of the bedroll. It appeared to be a small leather pouch, with letters chalked in red across its face. Solas’ voice was soft with fascination as he read: “ _Deff ranz dim berry star. VAZZEBRA._ ”

She took a step back. “Is that Qunlat? Why would Josephine…?”

“I… cannot imagine… Lady Montilyet had any knowledge of this,” he said, chuckling in a way that made her temporarily doubt his sanity. “Did Sera pick the lock? A beautifully subtle insult, perfectly executed.”

“Berry star… _beres-taar_. That translates to shield, I think?”

“Yes. _Vasebra_ : small. _Defransdim_ … well.” Solas unlatched the pouch, using the cloth so as not to hold it close or touch it with his hands. Placing it on the diamond floor, he pulled out a ring of transparent material, encircled by a fine ring made of horn, or bone. When she still looked blank, his lips twitched, and he made a gust of air flow into it, making the material extend out like the tip of a halla’s antler. “ _Edhis_ , _vhenan_. A very little thing.”

“Oh!” she cried, cheeks crimson. “You know I did not mean that! I meant that I did not much feel the pain. You are… well. Not that I have seen many, but you know what clan life is like. Larger than most elves.”

“And older than them, too.” He paused. “Perhaps this type is reserved for viddathari.”

She inspected the object. “I have heard of these shields, though never saw one. I suppose that Qunari do not always wish to sire more children. And… Qunari have bigger bodies, Solas! You can hardly call that an insult…”

“Sera would be hurt if I did not,” he said, placing bedroll, cloth, pouch and shield back in the chest for her to lock it, while he effortlessly cast the image of a circular woven rug across the floor, purple and white and gold. Having hidden the pool of diamond, he strode across to unward and unbar the door. Glancing back over his shoulder, a lilt in his voice, he teased: “So soon wed, _‘ma Virlath’bellanaris_ , and already we are debating!”

As soon as he had finished speaking, the heavy wooden door was flung back. Only his lightning reactions span a barrier that prevented it from hitting him squarely and with force. Virla leapt to her feet. Three Dalish Keepers.

“I know them, Solas,” said Virla, drawing herself up. “ _Hahren’allen_ , _andaran atish’an._ Let us talk, not fight.”

“Flat-ear shem-lover,” spat Keeper Ellathin Tillahnnen in her face, his deep voice rasping with anger. “How will you betray the People next? Sell us into slavery through your alliance with the shemlen Chantry and Tevinter?”

Keeper Elindra Ralaferin curtly nodded to Solas, her brown eyes glittering with determination. “I do not know if you are aware, Great Wolf, that those without the vallaslin are not permitted to be bonded.”

“The girl is not even Dalish!” cried Keeper Eliel Tanaleth, in her high, prim voice. “Clan Al’var has been exiled!”

Before Virla could react, Solas strode out of the room, ice-cold. “We will hear your petitions in the Great Hall.”

She took his lead, and, keeping her head high, swept past the Dalish Keepers, and the broken wards and glass of the window that they must have smashed to enter. Doors flung open of their own accord, and thundered shut, commanded by the power that suddenly swirled around him like a second aura. And as she walked into its wake, followed in aggrieved silence by the Keepers, it clung to her as well, a glistening, shimmering sheen that filled her mind with possibility, and warded her in thick layers of protection. _Mercy,_ she thought. _Mercy._

Drawing her spirit sword in front of her, out of sight of the hurrying elves behind them, Virla placed on it an illusion that would make it seem from certain angles as if it had been scythed halfway down the blade. The time she’d spent conjuring the image of a hand had paid off – it was easy to make it seem just as she wished.

The Great Hall was still empty, its huge doors barred and warded. Fen’Harel turned left, towards the throne – no, thrones, for there were two there now – gift? illusion? – underneath the stained glass windows. The pair were wrought wondrously alike, cast in a strange cold metal around which a dark shimmer seemed to absorb light. Stylized vines were picked out in emeralds. Solas took the right-hand throne, and waited, robed in his aura of divine majesty, for her to stand beside him. And as they sat, Virla rested her sword across her knees.

Only a flicker of his eyes to her betrayed that he had seen the sword… and her deliberate break in it.

“State your names,” said Solas, his voice as quietly formal as his posture was severe. Clearly, he was not portraying himself in the role of a Dalish Second. “I assume that you have sufficient reason for this intrusion.”

“My name is Elindra, Keeper of Ralaferin,” said Elindra. “Ought I to kneel?”

Solas raised an eyebrow. “The People should not be too quick to bend the knee. What is your petition, Keeper?”

The dark-skinned woman from the northern clan had had time to think, and formed a more precise statement this time. “That those without vallaslin should not be bonded in a Dalish ceremony.”

“Do you refer to our bonding earlier this day, Keeper?” Her answering nod was even more abrupt than before.

Fen’Harel smiled, a thin-edged smile that made Virla shiver. “Yet both Virlath and I received Mythal’s vallaslin.”

The old Keeper’s fury became tinged with bewilderment. “But I cannot see it!” she said, peering close at him.

“Does that make the sanctity of its receipt less real?” came the calm response.

As Elindra pondered that, Virla’s husband turned to Keeper Eliel, his expression hardening again. “You next.”

Eliel looked appalled at herself, as if she’d realised that even talking to the Dread Wolf might be viewed unfavourably by the blessed Creators. “I am only here,” she quavered, “to inform you of Clan Al’var’s exile.”

Solas’ voice grew soft. “Why are you afraid of me, Eliel of Clan Tanaleth?”

The woman started in terror. “How do you know my name?” she shrieked, and took a step backwards, her staff thrust forward as if to defend herself. “ _Falon’Din’enaste_ , I never should have come here!”

“Your name is written in runes upon your staff,” said the third Keeper, looking scornfully at Eliel, who became so flustered that her staff clattered to the floor. The man stepped forward, showing he was unafraid to meet Fen’Harel’s eyes. “Ellathin Tillahnnen, Keeper of that clan. My petition is this: Lavellan’s alliance with the shemlen Chantry is a risk to the freedom of the People. She will lead the Templars to our clans and they will slaughter us.”

“Our blood has spoken, our decision made, our love lives in us,” said Fen’Harel, as if to himself. Then, as even Virla looked confused, translated, for her benefit: “Elindra, Eliel, Ellathin. A sword, a ring and a circlet.”

Eliel, who had bent to retrieve her staff, looked up again, aghast. “Speak plainly,” said Ellathin.

“The Templar Order is but a shadow of what it was,” said Fen’Harel. He leant forward as if telling a secret. “Through Virlath’s deeds, the new Divine is a friend to mages and elves. For now, that friendship holds.”

“Our legends speak of your Betrayal, Fen’Harel,” said Ellathin, seeming genuinely puzzled. “Have you forgot the fall of Halamshiral? How can you sit there upon a throne and ask us to trust you when you speak of shems?”

“I did not hear him ask you that,” came a voice from the shadows. Hidden in the drapes, guessed Virla.

“Who… who are you?” said Eliel, stepping hastily away from the voice, her hands palm out in fear.

“A woman who lost her faith and found it,” said Leliana, suddenly appearing out of stealth between the thrones. Strange, thought Virla, how people tended to forget that Leliana was a rogue. Bard, assassin – now Divine.

“Those are the Divine’s robes,” said Elindra, incongruously proud of her knowledge of human religious attire.

“Your clan is a disgrace!” thundered Ellathin at his Dalish kinswoman, any semblance of unity rapidly disintegrating. “Ever since Gisharel was Keeper. The way you consort with shems. Almost as bad as Lavellan!”

“We ought never to have come,” moaned Eliel, shaking in terror. “Why did I let you persuade me, Elindra?”

“Because you were consumed with guilt for losing the artefact entrusted to you!” snapped Elindra back.

“I have heard tell,” said Solas with bitter amusement to Leliana and Virlath as the Keepers continued to argue, “that the true reason the Dalish clans all go their separate ways is that no two Keepers can stand each other.”

Remembering the Arlathvhens she’d attended, Virla had to admit he had a point, but was loath to say so openly. “If you are serious about a homeland,” she said instead to him, her voice somehow cutting through the argument, “they will need to put their differences aside.”

“We will not accept you as our king!” shouted Ellathin. The echoes reverberated around the Hall: _king… king._

“The wind was swift,” said Solas, meeting his eyes again, “but Falon’Din refused to chain it. I have read your _Animals of the People_ , Keeper. Would you let the People wander in the darkness with no guide?”

He let his gaze drift upwards to the stone owl hung above the entrance. And, remarkably on cue, the huge barred doors flew open, letting air and sunlight in, and the sudden cheers of a large, excited crowd. Ellathin’s eyes widened in fear and – almost – longing. How many people had he ever known? How many who could read?

“This audience is over,” said Solas, standing. Caught by surprise, Virla rose as well, her sword rapidly dispelled.

“They are waiting for us,” agreed Divine Victoria. She stepped forward confidently, and Solas offered an arm to his wife as they fell into step behind Leliana. He seemed no longer to care what the Keepers did, and she tried to match his air of unconcern. Indeed, she was almost ashamed of the poor spectacle the Dalish had created.

By the time they passed through the Great Hall, with all those due to be escorted by eluvian to Val Royeaux, the three Keepers had vanished, and Eliel’s staff was no longer on the floor. There was no time to look for them; no time to think of thrones or bonds; no time for anything but getting promptly to the Grand Cathedral. That there was an eluvian _inside_ its vaults was not at all coincidence – the Chantry had always kept its secrets close.

“I spoke to Keeper Lanaya,” said Divine Victoria, quietly, not looking back. A drawn-out procession walked behind her through the Crossroads: Most Holy; then Solas and Virlath; behind, the Arl of Redcliffe, Viscount of Kirkwall, Hero of Orlais and Grand Enchanter; then Baron Desjardins and Sister Clemency. Leliana’s voice was pitched low, not to carry.

“I thought,” continued Leliana, in a musing voice, “that you might be prepared to travel with Lanaya back to the eastern Brecilian Forest, and seek out the old temple that I once explored, with the Hero of Ferelden. Cullen might wish to accompany you. The lands that the Chantry gave him are on the Amaranthine coast near there.”

“I do not think the temple there dates back to Elvhenan,” said Solas, primly. “Yet the forest itself is of interest.”

“Indeed,” said the Divine, still looking straight ahead. “And, while there were sylvans and other exotic creatures, there was also wood for making ships. _You_ might know how best to placate the forest, if such wood were needed.”

“A homeland far from other people,” said Virla, sighing. “Does the Chantry wish to exile the Dalish to an island?”

“How can it be exile if you choose it? You have the eluvians. Besides, I should miss you if you did not visit.”

“Which island had you in mind?” asked Solas, curiously. “Most islands in the Waking Sea are close to land.”

She could almost see Most Holy’s smile as she tipped her head on one side. “Have you thought of… Estwatch?”

  



	40. Circlet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Pure indulgence on my part. :)
> 
> Edit (13 May 2018): There's now a further sequel actively being written, once you've finished this one: [Estwatch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888681/).

“Oh, and, Chuckles – one more thing,” said the irrepressible Viscount of Kirkwall, glass in hand, impervious to Lady Montilyet’s hints: “Those flowers on the crown Skylady’s wearing. Where have I seen them before?”

“In elven, they are _athdhea’lar_ ,” said Solas, trying to maintain his patience. “We saw them in the Fallow Mire.”

“Dawn lotus,” said Virla, translating. A rosy blush crept up her cheeks. “I only glimpsed them before Most Holy placed the circlet on my head, but I would know their scent anywhere. They have… special significance for us.”

Varric looked intrigued. Solas… saw a maiden clutching a bouquet in Dirthamen’s Temple, her gown translucent, barely veiling her form. A crown on a woman dressed in dark maroon, silk and leather, lustful, Shartan licking…

Desire hardened him, a yearning so strong the Hall broke into shards, the taste of remembered honey on his tongue. Lavender and lotus, how she’d ground upon the demon’s lap, the rip he’d made in her undergarments.

“Good night, Master Tethras,” he found himself saying again, forgetting to use the _durgen’len’s_ noble title in his hunger to escape. His spare hand was opening the door, his arm round Virlath’s waist to hasten her through.

“Sleep well!” added his wife, just before the door slammed shut behind them. Then, acting on sudden impulse, Solas lifted her off her feet and began to ascend the stairs. Her head lolled back against his right shoulder, the pelt more comfortable than the gilded pauldron would have been. Had the circlet not been augmented with an enchantment that secured it to its wearer's head, it would have tumbled down the stairs behind them both, undoing all Dagna’s excellent work in cleaning and repairing it. “I could walk, you know,” she murmured.

“Appreciate an ancient tradition,” he said. Words as barrier; he must not, must not, think of fucking her on the stairs, where everyone could hear. “In the village I grew up in, men used to carry their brides into their homes.”

“Varric would be thrilled to hear that,” said Virla, with a groan. “The _Inquisitor Lavellan Story_ was bad enough. Imagine what he’ll do with the _Bride of Fen’Harel_ sequel! And all the… bed scenes. I think if he could have followed us up here he would! I thought he would never stop asking questions.”

Fen’Harel decided it was not politic to mention that the Vir Dirthara had contained an extensive collection of lurid erotic fantasies written by his various admirers. He’d forced himself to read each one once, frequently while bathing in icy water, in case some brilliant spirit had hit on an idea that might resolve the crisis. That some texts might still survive – or Mythal might lead Virlath to their writers’ memories – was perilous to contemplate.

“Indeed,” he said, still climbing up. “I hope you did not mind my haste in leading you away.”

He dispelled the wards placed on her door and manoeuvred the handle to open it, and closed and warded the door again, still carrying his bride. Her face was flushed. Faint traces of mead moistened her lips from the small glass she’d permitted herself. He’d abstained completely, not wishing to forget himself tonight, and hurt her.   

“ _Fen’Harel ma ghilana,_ ” said Virla, as if it were a solemn invocation, not a Dalish curse. Her eyes were bright.

For all his eagerness to be alone with her, a strange reticence assailed him once they’d reached the summit of the stairs. Her room – _their_ room – was lit with too many candles, heavy with Chantry incense. The divan had been positioned opposite the fireplace; the fire burned ferociously. The curtains round the bed were closed to keep the warmth in. Everything had been prepared with obvious attention for this moment. He needed air.

Placing her carefully on her feet, he asked, this time in elven: “Shall we wish the moon good night?”

Unwarding and opening the balcony door, they walked out, hand in hand, and gazed up at the stars.

The cool night air revived him, and he was able to smell the _athdhea’lar_ in her circlet once again. The Orlesians in the Grand Cathedral had been in ecstasies when Divine Victoria explained its provenance: discovered in an ancient cave near Suledin Keep; of elven design and ancient dwarven craftsmanship; made for an Orlesian duel. It had formed the perfect symbol for Leliana to wind her sermon around: tolerance; the careful use of magic in sustaining and enhancing life; the need to keep the bloom of love alive; the hope that followed darkness.

He hadn’t realised how silent he had fallen, desire submerged in romantic contemplation, until Virla pressed his hand. “I missed you – after Corypheus,” she said in Common. “There was a party then as well. You’d gone, and I escaped up here. I stood and watched the dawn. I missed you terribly. You’d promised to explain, you see.”

Solas sighed, and stroked her fingers with his thumb. “It was selfish and irresponsible of me,” he said. “And yet, I truly meant to tell you then. But… when the orb broke, had I not gone, I doubt it would have ended happily.”

“But will it end happily?” asked Virlath, turning from the stars to him. Her face was serious, and thoughtful.

He longed to kiss her fears away, her sweet lips a temptation to resort to comforting lies. “It may take me some decades to become completely accustomed to a sharing of my life,” he admitted. “My nature is a careful one. Yet I have concluded it is right we allow ourselves some happiness, to balance out our duties to both worlds.”

“I do not think I pursued you because it was the easy route to take,” she said, as wise as Sophiyel had ever been; and real; and pure. “Yet… perhaps it will get easier, with time. Though we must make plans for taking Estwatch; and to protect the elves you brought together; and the Qunari threat. And then there are the eggs…”

“Hush,” he said, as gently as he could. “There will be time tomorrow, and the days that follow.”

Virla shivered, and he slipped his arms around her waist, holding her to him, her head against the pelt. Her silken dress was made for summer warmth in Val Royeaux, not midnight in the Frostbacks. His hand caressed the cold bare skin of her upper arm. It made him think of trees in winter, branches that would bud and bloom in spring.

“I should like to show you what you mean to me, _vhenan_ ,” he said. “Might we bedeck ourselves for night?”

“That sounds like a translation of a formal elven phrase,” said Virla, letting him lead her inside. He closed the doors; she smiled up at him. “You’re being archaic and obscure in the hope of getting me into bed, aren’t you?”

“I _am_ archaic and obscure,” he said, narrowing his eyes. He began to extinguish various candles around the room, leaving only a few alight. The air was fresher now. “Getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit.”

She stood uncertainly in the centre of the room. Then, charmingly and radiantly hesitant, she put her hands up to the back of her neck, and sought to unbutton her gown. Behind her, beside the wardrobe, he stripped his armour off, laying its pieces by the wall. But her fingers were chilled, and she had managed just two of six by the time he returned and stood behind her, dressed now only in his green silk leggings.  

“ _Tel’enfenim_ , _vhenan,_ ” he whispered, conscious of his breath warm on her cheek. “Would you like me to assist?”

His young bride nodded, trembling at his proximity. He started by lifting the circlet off her head, and walking round to place it on the mantelpiece. Anticipation, after all, was a large part of the pleasure, and this way, if she so desired, she could admire him too. Returning, he stood in front of her, and reached his hands around to work the third, fourth, fifth, sixth buttons loose, while her hands shyly clasped him round the waist.

Easing the dress down over her breasts revealed a fascinating under-bodice of lilac silk and lace, structured and moulded in a way that was decidedly not Dalish. He knew his face was alight with admiration, while her eyes traced from collarbone to abdomen, as they dipped down to his arousal, obvious even in the dimness.

“I do not wish to tear your gown,” said Solas, fighting back his predatory urges. He knelt, and slid the exquisite fabric down over hips and thighs and calves to where it formed a pool of embroidered silk around her ankles.

Looking up, he saw that she was beautiful, and that – though she had never been immodest – she knew it. A pulse beat in his throat, and he made an involuntary gesture of obeisance. “ _Virlath’enaste,_ ” he whispered.

“Don’t worship me,” she said, turning her head away in embarrassment. Then she stepped out of the dress, and hung it with care over the back of the divan. When he stayed kneeling, she urged him: “Come to bed, _vhenan_.”

She vanished through the curtains, a flash of skin and silk. Wishing he’d had a glass of mead himself, he stood. It would be awkward to remove his leggings in the bed. Sliding them off, he tossed them on to the divan, then changed his mind, retrieved them and arranged them neatly. Things had always been easier for him in the Fade.

****

The bedsheets had been warmed earlier as well, thought Virla, feeling to check there were no hot rune-stones forgotten under the covers. When she had imagined, a year ago, a first night with Fen’Harel, she’d seen herself as virgin prey and he the feral predator. Strange to reconcile that image – or, indeed, his princely manner as he made the Keepers present petitions – with the haunted look she’d seen in Solas’ eyes as he had knelt just now.

The curtain twitched aside, allowing light to permeate the bed’s interior darkness; and he stood there, naked, as vulnerable as she had ever seen him. Half-hard, and terrified: an old, old man who’d never had a wife. A tamed old wolf, who’d never known captivity. Fear swept aside by love, she turned the covers down in invitation.

“Come under the covers, or you’ll freeze,” she said, pretending he was a forty-year-old Keeper; this their aravel.

The curtain fell back as he let it go, plunging them into darkness. As he lay down, she shifted across to nestle into his body, hearing him exhale softly as he eased his arms around her. “ _Ar lath, ‘ma vhenan,_ ” he whispered.

“Shall I undress?” she asked, in elven, and smiled to herself as he breathed warm acquiescence into her skin.

In the dark, the only light came when she unclenched her left hand, and brought its shining azure light from underneath the quilts. Intensely aware of his hungry gaze, she wriggled out from his hold, and knelt where he could see all of her clearly. She ran her hands over the silken bodice, palms up underneath to show her curves, then unlaced the ribbon detail at the front, baring herself for him to appreciate. He’d seen it all before, of course, but only when he’d been Tranquil and she’d been in the power of the demon. Now they were free.

He lay on his side, propped up on an elbow, transfixed by her naked form, short dark eyelashes flickering as he blinked too fast. Waiting, breathing hard, as she caressed her breasts once more, this time over blue-tinged skin.

“Do that again,” he said, and she hastened to obey, her pulse quickening at his renewed tone of command. The magic in her hand flared brighter, painting her chest electric blue. Now his face was in shadow, but she heard his harsh intake of breath as she slipped her hands down to her hips, and began to slide the remaining silk down to her knees. Then she balled her hand into a fist, and made his sight go dark, as she completed undressing.

“What do you need from me?” came his voice, halfway between a whimper and a growl, as if he himself could not decide what manner of man he was. _Power, intrigue, danger, sex… or wisdom, love, and beauty._

She opened her hand again, and brought it to touch his face. “Your love, _vhenan,_ ” she said, still in elven, and watched the lust darken in his eyes as she continued. “Whatever obscure and ancient spell you wish to cast on me tonight. Suck me, lick me, fuck me – speak poetry, or ritual, or spells – or have me lie beneath you all the night in silence. I care not, only that you find your peace with me… for you have known so little peace in this.”

He was silent, then, eventually, he shook his head. “I would rather you instructed me in what you would like.”

Frustration rose within her. It had been a long day, and all she wanted was to serve at his command, yet he refused one. “Because of some fool notion that pride must be subservient to love? I’m a woman, not a spirit! We both know that you have seen, read and experienced far more than me, regardless of your technical virginity!”

“My previous technical virginity,” said Solas, correcting her so dryly that her anger turned to laughter.

His expression softened, and he reached across to pull her face down on to his, his fingers tangling in her long loose hair, her own caressing his neck and azure-tinted ears. His mouth claimed hers in a hungry kiss, his tongue delving in between her lips. As ardent and possessive as in dreams, not held back by over-cautious dread.

“Very well, _‘ma asha_ ,” he said, as they paused for breath. “Lie on your front, and keep your hand closed.”

She did, and soon felt his knees press either side of her ribs, his hands kneading out the tension in her back. Gradually, he worked down to her thighs, then, leaning forward, whispered: “Please tell me if it hurts at all.”

“I will,” she reassured him, then spread her legs, to have him work at her with thumb and magic. She’d been wet for him for hours, ever since the morning, and it felt like no time at all before he had her on the verge of glory.

But before she could crest the wave, he rolled her on to her side, her shoulderblades against the hard muscles of his chest, his hands painting warmth under and around her breasts. Magic continued to stimulate inside her – a weak pulse that was not enough to satisfy. Virla pressed her ass back against his edhis, hoping to encourage him, and found him sliding one hand down, as if to trace a glyph against her clit.

“Fire or lightning?” asked Solas, as if it were rhetorical. Yet his tone was far from scholarly, a smirk in its depths reminding her again of flirting at the Winter Palace ball. “The texts do not agree on which is best.”

Virla smiled into the darkness. “Why can’t it be both?”

She thought he stiffened briefly at her answer, but his response when it came was tender. “As you wish.” His fingers traced lines of warmth and electricity along the magic leylines of her aura, building and extracting power.

“I should like… to learn… how you do that,” she murmured, writhing against the stimulation, rubbing against his chest and thighs like an animal in heat. Illuminated: crimson-azure-violet-silver. Solas kissed along her neck and shoulder, nipping gently with his teeth, murmuring archaic words of praise: “so that I can do it… in return.”

“I will teach you,” said Solas, his voice as soft as the hands that shifted her on to her back, the words as taut as the body he laid on top of hers, his knees between her legs. The magic was pulled out of her edhas in a sudden, gleaming rush. He teased her slick entrance with his edhis, encouraging her to lift her limbs around him.

Ankles up to aid the angle. It felt large… it... “Oh! Oh!” cried Virla. “That feels… good. Please… don’t stop!”

His body was hot, and dripping with sweat, and he fucked her as powerfully as she knew the Dread Wolf had to, riding his internal rhythm: biting, kissing and licking her until she lost all inhibition; cresting waves and waves of love; commanding him to change position; giving/receiving fenedhis; healing scars and soreness with a thought.

While mana remained. Eventually, of course, even those with god-like powers become exhausted.

“I will… teach you… everything I know,” said Solas. It felt more like a vow than anything said earlier.

“I promise… to be a diligent student,” said Virla, sighing with happiness as she cuddled in to him. The mark on her hand shone silver with the magic she had spent: moonlight on their skin. “Do you think it has dawned yet?”

Solas chuckled. “The sun, or the situation?”

She giggled, amused. “Even I might take a few weeks to become completely accustomed to the situation.”

He tightened his arm around her, then hummed in thought, kissing her forehead before sitting up, ensuring she was carefully placed against the pillows before he swung his long legs out of the bed. “I shall return shortly.”

Virla blinked as he pulled the curtain back, revealing a soft grey light, herald of oncoming dawn. Presumably, he wanted to wash – his meditations were long, not short – and she was not surprised when he disappeared into the bathroom. But when he emerged, a few minutes later, a white towel tucked demurely round his waist, he was nursing a mug of something warm and steaming in each hand. The scent was… familiar, in an old, lost way.

Cinnamon, and chocolate, and spices.

She sat up straight, pushing her hair back unselfconsciously from her body. She knew her mouth had fallen open. “Deshanna gave you her recipe for hot chocolate? My favourite? She never gives _anybody_ that!”

Solas smirked. “The knock that woke me from your dreams last night? Hers. She wished to make amends.”

The mug was blissfully hot in her hands as he passed it, and his arm a warm embrace. “Deshanna came to me as well,” said Virla, inhaling the delicious scent. “Before the ceremony. She told me only duty bade her choose Clan Lavellan over me. She meant to save them, then resign as Keeper. She was glad she did not have to choose.”

“Even stone can rise,” said Solas, smiling as he took a sip, and Virla remembered the battered notebook Cole had given them. Perhaps, later today, they’d go through it, and talk about the meanings of the phrases.

But now, and for a long time after, nothing needed to be said.

  



End file.
